Inventory for the morning.
Managed to haul self out of bed, despite the recent relocation of the gravity well from the futon to the mattress.
Emptied the neverending bowl of cereal (it stayed crunchy too!) and realised that I'm far too used to slurp-and-run breakfasts.
Made it back to my apartment without falling alseep on my feet.
Made coffee. (Precioussssssssss cofffeeeeeeee)
Made pastry.
Pastry is now chilling in the fridge, while I am about to go for the fastest shower in history and pray there's a parking spot within half a mile of work by the time I get there.
Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB [>] !!
(that's what the pastry's for, in case anyone was wondering why it featured in my morning routine)
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Saturday, April 19, 2003
Thursday, April 17, 2003
My final trip to the animal facility passed without significant occurence yesterday. The mice are still there, and nobody seems to have shuffled them about into the wrong cages or any other disasterous little error. I felt absolutely no twinges of nostalgia at the idea that this was the last time I'd be in that room mixing and matching breeding pairs, and trying to read the numbers on their earrings without getting bitten.
So now I'm sitting about procrastinating in my apartment. I haven't built the excell file for Vin yet, I originally put it off because I thought I had to do it on a mac for him to be able to read it, now I'm just plain procrastinating. Taking advantage of the fact that I dont' have to be in at work this morning, only the place where I used to work, where they can hardly yell at me for being late when I'm coming in to finish a proceedure for them as a courtesy.
I am procrastinating by updating my quicken file, subscribing to Norton Antivirus, and attempting to cancel my unused AOL subscripiton before they start charging me for it. They do not make it easy to cancel, that's for sure. I have run around circular chains of links looking for a section along the lines of "cancel my subscription" and there wasn't even a hint of it. As though they want you to forget it's an option. Other ISPs do not exist, they are merely figments of your imagination... I finally resorted to live online help. Who gave me a phone number, which connected me to a woman who spouted out the script she had been given as fast as humanly possible without regard for diction, inflection or intelligebility. I think I have cancelled my subscription, but after asking her to repeat herself four or five times, and requesting that she speak more slowly each time I asked for a repeat, I just took my confirmaiton number and ran.
On the home front...it's been a wierd couple of days. It's hard to really explain how, because it was so internal and so close to the core that words don't work very well. We've both been having a bit of a rocky path recently, and I forgot that. I forgot that it's both of us, not just me, that's been through the wringer. Of course that's why we work so well together.
I'm so used to being the only sensitive person in a relationship, to being trampled and taken for granted and whined at for not fulfilling expectations, I need to remind myself again and again that this man is different, he isn't going to treat me like that. I had realised that part fairly early on, what I failed to note was that this also means he can get hurt by me more easily than the other oafs. So now I've pulled my head out of my ass maybe we can continue with the upward path we were on before.
So now I'm sitting about procrastinating in my apartment. I haven't built the excell file for Vin yet, I originally put it off because I thought I had to do it on a mac for him to be able to read it, now I'm just plain procrastinating. Taking advantage of the fact that I dont' have to be in at work this morning, only the place where I used to work, where they can hardly yell at me for being late when I'm coming in to finish a proceedure for them as a courtesy.
I am procrastinating by updating my quicken file, subscribing to Norton Antivirus, and attempting to cancel my unused AOL subscripiton before they start charging me for it. They do not make it easy to cancel, that's for sure. I have run around circular chains of links looking for a section along the lines of "cancel my subscription" and there wasn't even a hint of it. As though they want you to forget it's an option. Other ISPs do not exist, they are merely figments of your imagination... I finally resorted to live online help. Who gave me a phone number, which connected me to a woman who spouted out the script she had been given as fast as humanly possible without regard for diction, inflection or intelligebility. I think I have cancelled my subscription, but after asking her to repeat herself four or five times, and requesting that she speak more slowly each time I asked for a repeat, I just took my confirmaiton number and ran.
On the home front...it's been a wierd couple of days. It's hard to really explain how, because it was so internal and so close to the core that words don't work very well. We've both been having a bit of a rocky path recently, and I forgot that. I forgot that it's both of us, not just me, that's been through the wringer. Of course that's why we work so well together.
I'm so used to being the only sensitive person in a relationship, to being trampled and taken for granted and whined at for not fulfilling expectations, I need to remind myself again and again that this man is different, he isn't going to treat me like that. I had realised that part fairly early on, what I failed to note was that this also means he can get hurt by me more easily than the other oafs. So now I've pulled my head out of my ass maybe we can continue with the upward path we were on before.
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
So far so good
On my first day they had me "training" a high school student who's in for four days this week. In about two weeks I will be training a new guy who's coming in to one of the other labs in our group. This new guy was the other candidate for my job, hopefully he won't have a problem with being trained by the woman who beat him to that position, especially since they liked him so much they called him back for an alternative position.
Today is back-and-forth day, as is tomorrow. I'm going in to the Whittier this afternoon to start a column running, then tomorrow morning to collect the product. Which means a final trip to the mousies today, and I will hand my badge over to Vin, along with the notebook this afternoon.
I'm still boggled by the suggestion I train someone after being at the new lab for a couple of weeks! It is a new feeling to be presented with a challenge that will stretch me, but is do-able. It was begining to feel as though all the challenging things expected of me were of the variety that would require me to sprout super-powers and psychic abilities instantaineously.
On my first day they had me "training" a high school student who's in for four days this week. In about two weeks I will be training a new guy who's coming in to one of the other labs in our group. This new guy was the other candidate for my job, hopefully he won't have a problem with being trained by the woman who beat him to that position, especially since they liked him so much they called him back for an alternative position.
Today is back-and-forth day, as is tomorrow. I'm going in to the Whittier this afternoon to start a column running, then tomorrow morning to collect the product. Which means a final trip to the mousies today, and I will hand my badge over to Vin, along with the notebook this afternoon.
I'm still boggled by the suggestion I train someone after being at the new lab for a couple of weeks! It is a new feeling to be presented with a challenge that will stretch me, but is do-able. It was begining to feel as though all the challenging things expected of me were of the variety that would require me to sprout super-powers and psychic abilities instantaineously.
Friday, April 11, 2003
My last official day, and I don't want it to start yet. I think I'm afraid of the transition period, worrying about how much I'm going to be expected to continue to do at the Whittier while trying to make an excellent first impression at the new lab.
It's a new experience for me, becasue it's only my last day, not the last day of school before the summer holidays, the farewell concert at St Margaret's, exhibition day at The Edinburgh Academy, hoards of people saying so long, see you later, have a nice life, keep in touch, nice knowing you...just me, drifting off into the ether. Rather like my graduation ceremony at King's, I barely spoke to anyone, exchanged no hugs or telephone numbers, just stood there in my gown hoping nobody who knew me would notice the "3rd class honours" next to my name, wishing for the day to be over.
I know it will be a damp squib, because I will have to come back to finish up, at the very least to run the last netrin purification. I wonder if Vincenzo will realise that the sudden disorganisation is an indicator of how much I have been doing here, or just assign it to sabotage on the part of the one who left.
The sooner I get started the sooner I'll be done. The more I achive today the less I will have left over to complete in drips and dribbles over the next couple of weeks, interfering with my new position.
It's a new experience for me, becasue it's only my last day, not the last day of school before the summer holidays, the farewell concert at St Margaret's, exhibition day at The Edinburgh Academy, hoards of people saying so long, see you later, have a nice life, keep in touch, nice knowing you...just me, drifting off into the ether. Rather like my graduation ceremony at King's, I barely spoke to anyone, exchanged no hugs or telephone numbers, just stood there in my gown hoping nobody who knew me would notice the "3rd class honours" next to my name, wishing for the day to be over.
I know it will be a damp squib, because I will have to come back to finish up, at the very least to run the last netrin purification. I wonder if Vincenzo will realise that the sudden disorganisation is an indicator of how much I have been doing here, or just assign it to sabotage on the part of the one who left.
The sooner I get started the sooner I'll be done. The more I achive today the less I will have left over to complete in drips and dribbles over the next couple of weeks, interfering with my new position.
Monday, April 07, 2003
A Year And A Day
It's hard to decide if it feels longer or shorter, but it's just a year and a day. For a year and a day now I have had him in my life, it started [>] slowly, or seemed to. But from the moment I sat down in the fold-down theatre seat accross from him in the cafe, from the moment I took his hand in greeting and noticed the shape, the warmth of his skin, noticed the pair of celtic rings... From that moment my life was changed, though I didn't know it yet, and it has been changing for the better ever since.
Every day now, every single day I have love, so passionate it takes my breath away, and yet so constant and true that it has become a treasured habit. I wake up to a kiss, sleepy hugs in passing while we stagger into our work clothes, a quick breakfast and we're off to our respective destinations. For the rest of the day I smile remembering his sleepy face, the flop of flaxen hair that refuses to stay completely behind his ear, his cold feet seeking out my own for morning warmth.
After work we sink into the gravity well hidden in his futon, rest our heads together and realise that the gravity well must be escaped if we are ever to have dinner. This usually requires teamwork.
I could go on, listing detail after detail that makes him, that makes us so wonderful to me. It all flattens like toothpaste when translated into words. So I will stick with this choice selection: thank you for being part of my life, for making this past year full of growth and love, stick around and who know's what we'll manage together!
It's hard to decide if it feels longer or shorter, but it's just a year and a day. For a year and a day now I have had him in my life, it started [>] slowly, or seemed to. But from the moment I sat down in the fold-down theatre seat accross from him in the cafe, from the moment I took his hand in greeting and noticed the shape, the warmth of his skin, noticed the pair of celtic rings... From that moment my life was changed, though I didn't know it yet, and it has been changing for the better ever since.
Every day now, every single day I have love, so passionate it takes my breath away, and yet so constant and true that it has become a treasured habit. I wake up to a kiss, sleepy hugs in passing while we stagger into our work clothes, a quick breakfast and we're off to our respective destinations. For the rest of the day I smile remembering his sleepy face, the flop of flaxen hair that refuses to stay completely behind his ear, his cold feet seeking out my own for morning warmth.
After work we sink into the gravity well hidden in his futon, rest our heads together and realise that the gravity well must be escaped if we are ever to have dinner. This usually requires teamwork.
I could go on, listing detail after detail that makes him, that makes us so wonderful to me. It all flattens like toothpaste when translated into words. So I will stick with this choice selection: thank you for being part of my life, for making this past year full of growth and love, stick around and who know's what we'll manage together!
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
So it's real, I am in my last two weeks at the Whittier. Actually, my last full day will be April 11th, so I'm in my last 10 days....and counting.
Only I'm not really counting down, not as I have for so many landmarks, because it's so close I know it'll be upon me before I know it. Even then it won't be a definitive end point, there will be some remaining tasks in the month or so after I officially leave. I know I will have to come back in a couple of times to finish the last purification, and I know there will be some drama from Vin about the mice and how I should be training Giuseppe to handle them. Frankly, I'm not qualified to train anyone to care for a colony, all I can do is hand him an up-to-date excell file with their ages and genotypes, and send him off to do the classes, not forgetting to emphasize to him not to be afraid to ask Vin, because Vin is the big boss and he knows lots about mice. Supposedly.
The important thing is that this place is no longer my future. I no longer have to wonder "is this all I will ever amount to?" because I know that at the very least I amount to a succesful candidate for a challenging job in neuropathology, and someone who looks pretty good for a cell culture maintenence post in a gastroimmunology lab (yes, I was offered the other job too, I got to turn down a job and hand in my notice on the same day). Added to that I have been told across the board "You should plan on graduate studies, even if it's just an MSc, it would be a waste not to". Not by my Loving Parents, or my Devoted Partner, who's role it is to encourage and flatter me, but by my interviewer (and now soon-to-be-boss), by a coworker who has just been accepted into a highly competative Pharmacy school, and by the supervisor I'm leaving somewhat in the lurch with my resignation.
I was unhappy, and I looked for alternatives, I took the initiative and wrote my damn resume afresh, sent it out there, and I was rewarded with a new job, one that appeals to me in ways it never could have if I had fallen into it right out of university. My frustrated spinning at the Whittier has taught me to value straightforwardness, organisation and research-driven passion for work. All of a sudden I'm getting excited by papers on demyelinating leukoencephalopathy, and looking forward to working wiht endothelial cells, because they're much easier to work with than those pesky primary cell cultures we've been trying to use here. Not to mention not requiring isolation from primary tissue before they can be used...
I was also highly amused by a molecular biology in-joke [>] , and tried to share it with Matt, who had never heard of real-time PCR. I got a very blank look in return. He liked the picture of the enzyme vending machine though. You know you're a geek when the best joke of your day sounds like a bunch of gobbldygook to anyone outside your line of work.
Ladies and Gentlemen, hold on to your hats, I might be turning into a scientist after all.
Only I'm not really counting down, not as I have for so many landmarks, because it's so close I know it'll be upon me before I know it. Even then it won't be a definitive end point, there will be some remaining tasks in the month or so after I officially leave. I know I will have to come back in a couple of times to finish the last purification, and I know there will be some drama from Vin about the mice and how I should be training Giuseppe to handle them. Frankly, I'm not qualified to train anyone to care for a colony, all I can do is hand him an up-to-date excell file with their ages and genotypes, and send him off to do the classes, not forgetting to emphasize to him not to be afraid to ask Vin, because Vin is the big boss and he knows lots about mice. Supposedly.
The important thing is that this place is no longer my future. I no longer have to wonder "is this all I will ever amount to?" because I know that at the very least I amount to a succesful candidate for a challenging job in neuropathology, and someone who looks pretty good for a cell culture maintenence post in a gastroimmunology lab (yes, I was offered the other job too, I got to turn down a job and hand in my notice on the same day). Added to that I have been told across the board "You should plan on graduate studies, even if it's just an MSc, it would be a waste not to". Not by my Loving Parents, or my Devoted Partner, who's role it is to encourage and flatter me, but by my interviewer (and now soon-to-be-boss), by a coworker who has just been accepted into a highly competative Pharmacy school, and by the supervisor I'm leaving somewhat in the lurch with my resignation.
I was unhappy, and I looked for alternatives, I took the initiative and wrote my damn resume afresh, sent it out there, and I was rewarded with a new job, one that appeals to me in ways it never could have if I had fallen into it right out of university. My frustrated spinning at the Whittier has taught me to value straightforwardness, organisation and research-driven passion for work. All of a sudden I'm getting excited by papers on demyelinating leukoencephalopathy, and looking forward to working wiht endothelial cells, because they're much easier to work with than those pesky primary cell cultures we've been trying to use here. Not to mention not requiring isolation from primary tissue before they can be used...
I was also highly amused by a molecular biology in-joke [>] , and tried to share it with Matt, who had never heard of real-time PCR. I got a very blank look in return. He liked the picture of the enzyme vending machine though. You know you're a geek when the best joke of your day sounds like a bunch of gobbldygook to anyone outside your line of work.
Ladies and Gentlemen, hold on to your hats, I might be turning into a scientist after all.
Sunday, March 30, 2003
Tomorrow I hand in my notice. I plan to start at the new lab on the 14th, which is a year to the day after my first "last day" at the Whittier, before I began my highly enjoyable (and not at all stressful, oh no...) volunteer period [>] I did not plan this exactly, but it is a pleasing little bit of poetic justice for me.
I need to talk to Human Resources and to Dr Langford to find out what paperwork is required, first, to end my current job, and second to begin the new one. Preferably with all my benefits rolling right over and remaining unchanged, since I'm not changing employer, just labs.
That makes it sound like it'll hardly be a change at all, very decieving.
I need to talk to Human Resources and to Dr Langford to find out what paperwork is required, first, to end my current job, and second to begin the new one. Preferably with all my benefits rolling right over and remaining unchanged, since I'm not changing employer, just labs.
That makes it sound like it'll hardly be a change at all, very decieving.
Friday, March 28, 2003
There are too many things whizzing through my mind at the moment.
My parents are here, though they're late showing up at my apartment, Matt and I had dinner with them last night. I had some nice ideas for things to write here, but that all went out the window when I checked my email before coming to Blogger, and found a very important email.
I had been facing a weekend of wondering, as Dr Langford had said it was down to me and one other candidate, and she was going to ponder it over the weekend...evidently she changed this plan pretty quickly, as I found an email this morning offering me the job.
So...excuse me, I must just go take a cold shower, and pinch myself a few times.
They offered me the job...
My parents are here, though they're late showing up at my apartment, Matt and I had dinner with them last night. I had some nice ideas for things to write here, but that all went out the window when I checked my email before coming to Blogger, and found a very important email.
I had been facing a weekend of wondering, as Dr Langford had said it was down to me and one other candidate, and she was going to ponder it over the weekend...evidently she changed this plan pretty quickly, as I found an email this morning offering me the job.
So...excuse me, I must just go take a cold shower, and pinch myself a few times.
They offered me the job...
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Where have all my links gone?
The template remains unchanged, so I'm going to wait and see if this resolves itself. Then maybe I'll go buy HTML For Dummies and make my own template so there's nobody to blame but me when it screws up.
I have an interview tonight after work, something in the Medical Department, involving immunology, but he wasn't very descriptive about their research projects. I will find out tonight though! Then I have the second interview for the neuropathology job tomorrow, but I'm not sure of what time yet...
The template remains unchanged, so I'm going to wait and see if this resolves itself. Then maybe I'll go buy HTML For Dummies and make my own template so there's nobody to blame but me when it screws up.
I have an interview tonight after work, something in the Medical Department, involving immunology, but he wasn't very descriptive about their research projects. I will find out tonight though! Then I have the second interview for the neuropathology job tomorrow, but I'm not sure of what time yet...
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
The interviewer on Thursday told me during the course of the interview that it's obvious to her I'll go on to grad school of some variety, I'm clearly too curious and intelligent to want to be a technician all my life...
Coming from a young 30-something PhD who holds a junior fellowship at UCSD, that's quite a compliment.
I've spent the past few years of my life being told in various ways that I'm just not cut out for academia, that I'm not motivated enough, or intellectual enough. Maybe it's time to stop listening to the naysayers and just follow what I want to do.
Coming from a young 30-something PhD who holds a junior fellowship at UCSD, that's quite a compliment.
I've spent the past few years of my life being told in various ways that I'm just not cut out for academia, that I'm not motivated enough, or intellectual enough. Maybe it's time to stop listening to the naysayers and just follow what I want to do.
Like Alice & The White Rabbit All Rolled Into One...
I seem to have spent the last couple of weeks scurrying about thinking "I'm late I'm late"...or something along those lines. There haven't been too many instances of random potions and cakes instructing me to drink or eat them, which is good since my appetite has gone through the roof (probably the result of a drastic decrease in smoke inhilation) and I'm sure I would just blithely follow instructions and end up oscillating back and forth between ten foot two and three inches tall.
The Alice analagy also holds up with my mood, I've been extraordinarily touchy recently, just like so many of the characters in Wonderland, or Through the Looking Glass. It didn't carry across in the Disney adaptation, but Alice really is a bit of a spoiled bitch.
There has been a resurgence of the jolly old low self esteem. I feel slow and stupid, and despite remembering that I've lost a significant amount of weight, and am still toning up every week, I feel fat and plain too on the really bad days. I'm ready to move on from the job I'm in, which leads to the question of whether I'm good enough to get a position anywhere that I would want to work. Would a lab that strikes me as cutting edge and high-powered, with nice people working there thrown in as a bonus, even consider taking me on as their associate?
The answer to this seems to be "yes". I got an email about the interview I had on Thursday, asking me to come in for a second interview with the big boss (who was out of town last week) and mentioning that she hopes I feel that this position is right for me too...
Whew.
Another interview, with the Vice-Chancellor of the Pathology Dept. Or is it Vice-Chancellor of Neurobio...? Either way, I'm getting interviewed by a Vice Chancellor Good thing I own a second pair of smart pants.
My parents are coming in to town on Thursday, I suspect I will show them my apartment for about five minutes and then go to bed! Thank Heavens Friday is a holiday, I will be able to show them around town a little and relax from the chaos that started with the phone message last monday asking me to contact the Neuro/Path lab for an interview.
I still haven't varnished these darn chairs.
I seem to have spent the last couple of weeks scurrying about thinking "I'm late I'm late"...or something along those lines. There haven't been too many instances of random potions and cakes instructing me to drink or eat them, which is good since my appetite has gone through the roof (probably the result of a drastic decrease in smoke inhilation) and I'm sure I would just blithely follow instructions and end up oscillating back and forth between ten foot two and three inches tall.
The Alice analagy also holds up with my mood, I've been extraordinarily touchy recently, just like so many of the characters in Wonderland, or Through the Looking Glass. It didn't carry across in the Disney adaptation, but Alice really is a bit of a spoiled bitch.
There has been a resurgence of the jolly old low self esteem. I feel slow and stupid, and despite remembering that I've lost a significant amount of weight, and am still toning up every week, I feel fat and plain too on the really bad days. I'm ready to move on from the job I'm in, which leads to the question of whether I'm good enough to get a position anywhere that I would want to work. Would a lab that strikes me as cutting edge and high-powered, with nice people working there thrown in as a bonus, even consider taking me on as their associate?
The answer to this seems to be "yes". I got an email about the interview I had on Thursday, asking me to come in for a second interview with the big boss (who was out of town last week) and mentioning that she hopes I feel that this position is right for me too...
Whew.
Another interview, with the Vice-Chancellor of the Pathology Dept. Or is it Vice-Chancellor of Neurobio...? Either way, I'm getting interviewed by a Vice Chancellor Good thing I own a second pair of smart pants.
My parents are coming in to town on Thursday, I suspect I will show them my apartment for about five minutes and then go to bed! Thank Heavens Friday is a holiday, I will be able to show them around town a little and relax from the chaos that started with the phone message last monday asking me to contact the Neuro/Path lab for an interview.
I still haven't varnished these darn chairs.
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
While I'm at it, listing everything that is making me busy this week, I'll add in the highly probable appearance of a Monica on my horizons on Friday, the most concrete arrival of my parents in LA today, followed by their descent to San Diego a week from tomorrow...and have I mentioned that I really need to vacuum? And do the kitchen and bathroom floors? Oh, and varnish the chairs too...
Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me.
Why yes, I did have coffee this morning, how did you ever guess?
Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me. Nobody will care about the carpet fuzzies but me.
Why yes, I did have coffee this morning, how did you ever guess?
Whoah!
A nice restful do-nothing (and not feel bad about it) weekend turned into a very busy and productive beginning of the week. Not to mention the first week where I haven't been fried and ready for an extra day's sleep by Tuesday evening.
Yesterday I made some big steps towards putting my financial house in order, such as signing up for online banking, transferring the data into Quicken on my computer, going through and assigning categories to most transactions, tweaking how it's all categorised to suit me...basically playing with a new techno-toy. Now I have a pie chart telling me exactly what percentage of my takehome gets spent in cafes, and how much goes to karate, the statistical analysis possibilities are endless. Hopefully it'll help me budget and save more effectively too.
I also found the website where I can manage my work benefits, and, in the process of finally setting up my 403(b), I discovered that I already have a tax-exempt savings type thingy through UCSD. A compulsory one that all UC employees automatically have built in their names (and deducted from their paychecks). Thank heavens for compulsory automatic deductions, now I don't feel like quite such a wastrel for waiting almost 18 months to set up my retirement scheme.
A voicemail on Monday, and a conversation yesterday are also providing much busy-ness for the next 48 hours, a bit stressful, but overall a very positive thing, and I'm not going to jinx it by publishing any more information. It's just another jigsaw piece.
A nice restful do-nothing (and not feel bad about it) weekend turned into a very busy and productive beginning of the week. Not to mention the first week where I haven't been fried and ready for an extra day's sleep by Tuesday evening.
Yesterday I made some big steps towards putting my financial house in order, such as signing up for online banking, transferring the data into Quicken on my computer, going through and assigning categories to most transactions, tweaking how it's all categorised to suit me...basically playing with a new techno-toy. Now I have a pie chart telling me exactly what percentage of my takehome gets spent in cafes, and how much goes to karate, the statistical analysis possibilities are endless. Hopefully it'll help me budget and save more effectively too.
I also found the website where I can manage my work benefits, and, in the process of finally setting up my 403(b), I discovered that I already have a tax-exempt savings type thingy through UCSD. A compulsory one that all UC employees automatically have built in their names (and deducted from their paychecks). Thank heavens for compulsory automatic deductions, now I don't feel like quite such a wastrel for waiting almost 18 months to set up my retirement scheme.
A voicemail on Monday, and a conversation yesterday are also providing much busy-ness for the next 48 hours, a bit stressful, but overall a very positive thing, and I'm not going to jinx it by publishing any more information. It's just another jigsaw piece.
Monday, March 10, 2003
We Were Wildly Idle All Weekend...
Matt and I swapped undisclosed locations this weekend. Well, I disclosed the location before we set out, but only to check if he was up for a 2-3 hour drive at either end. He took me to the beach in front of the Hotel Del on friday night so we could watch the waves without crazy hippies leaping around nearby fires and trying to borrow his guitar (as is usually the situation on Ocean Beach). Then on to our local cafe, where a very strange looking man (no eyebrows except for the one tattooed over one eye, and his eyes appeared to be completely black) was alternating between a banjo and a guitar, then we went home, where we planned on sitting about with lots of candles lit, but fell asleep on the futon instead. Yes, we are wild and crazy sleepy middle-aged 20-somethings.
Then on Saturday we headed for Idyllwild. There was SNOW! Granite boulders, redwood trees, California oaks, a little creek...and I have to get working, so I can't write any more. But it was lovely, my pants didn't survive the granite and thornbushes though. Or sliding down a slope (made up of said granite and thornbushes) on my ass...
Matt and I swapped undisclosed locations this weekend. Well, I disclosed the location before we set out, but only to check if he was up for a 2-3 hour drive at either end. He took me to the beach in front of the Hotel Del on friday night so we could watch the waves without crazy hippies leaping around nearby fires and trying to borrow his guitar (as is usually the situation on Ocean Beach). Then on to our local cafe, where a very strange looking man (no eyebrows except for the one tattooed over one eye, and his eyes appeared to be completely black) was alternating between a banjo and a guitar, then we went home, where we planned on sitting about with lots of candles lit, but fell asleep on the futon instead. Yes, we are wild and crazy sleepy middle-aged 20-somethings.
Then on Saturday we headed for Idyllwild. There was SNOW! Granite boulders, redwood trees, California oaks, a little creek...and I have to get working, so I can't write any more. But it was lovely, my pants didn't survive the granite and thornbushes though. Or sliding down a slope (made up of said granite and thornbushes) on my ass...
Tuesday, March 04, 2003
Nap-Time For Little Rosie...
Wow, I woke up today feeling a great need for further sleep, and decided to call in sick, then I didn't surface to conciousness again until after noon had been and gone. I guess I really did need that nap.
I think I've reached, or maybe just left, the far end of the counter-swing to my depression. I went from despondancy and not caring about anything, to taking a bunch of incedentals waaaaay too seriously, and paid for it with a month of on and off migraines and finally some monumental back tension. The massage I had on saturday helped that, but not until it had also provided me with some new and interesting aches of it's own, primarily from the high tension and all the "toxins" being released. There were probably a lot of those pesky toxins now I come to think of it, I have a pretty healthy diet, but I supplement it with a variety of metabolic poisons such as caffiene, alcohol, and nicotene, not to mention the toxic effects of stress, fear, and other emotional body-busters. I have an image of rivers of radioactive green toxins being released from my muscles and connective tissues and running riot through my circulatory system, until they either resettle into new posiitons or get flushed out by the stupid amounts of water I have been drinking since Saturday.
Now I'm eying up my second bowl of home-made raspberry mocha.
Fear not, this isn't me ignoring my own observations of the effects of metabolic poisons, I truly am turning over a new leaf. Smoking has been drastically reduced, and water intake is on the increase. I'm spending less time stressing over life, and more time paying attention to leading it, and fixing the problems. This site gets to see my continuted panics, because that's how I stop them from bouncing around the inside of my skull and get them out of the way so I can get on with things IRL.
Wow, I woke up today feeling a great need for further sleep, and decided to call in sick, then I didn't surface to conciousness again until after noon had been and gone. I guess I really did need that nap.
I think I've reached, or maybe just left, the far end of the counter-swing to my depression. I went from despondancy and not caring about anything, to taking a bunch of incedentals waaaaay too seriously, and paid for it with a month of on and off migraines and finally some monumental back tension. The massage I had on saturday helped that, but not until it had also provided me with some new and interesting aches of it's own, primarily from the high tension and all the "toxins" being released. There were probably a lot of those pesky toxins now I come to think of it, I have a pretty healthy diet, but I supplement it with a variety of metabolic poisons such as caffiene, alcohol, and nicotene, not to mention the toxic effects of stress, fear, and other emotional body-busters. I have an image of rivers of radioactive green toxins being released from my muscles and connective tissues and running riot through my circulatory system, until they either resettle into new posiitons or get flushed out by the stupid amounts of water I have been drinking since Saturday.
Now I'm eying up my second bowl of home-made raspberry mocha.
Fear not, this isn't me ignoring my own observations of the effects of metabolic poisons, I truly am turning over a new leaf. Smoking has been drastically reduced, and water intake is on the increase. I'm spending less time stressing over life, and more time paying attention to leading it, and fixing the problems. This site gets to see my continuted panics, because that's how I stop them from bouncing around the inside of my skull and get them out of the way so I can get on with things IRL.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Besides not getting lost in Mission Valley any more, I fully intend to stop flipping out about my life until I have solid evidence that flipping out is, indeed, required.
I will also learn (eventually) that a quiet, briefly worded response doesn't indicate unhappiness or resentment, it indicates acceptance. Thanks to Kenny C. for that last hangup.
I have a wonderful, patient man who sees I'm having trouble, and waits until I figure out what's wrong and come talk to him, even if that means weathering me being wierdly moody and ignoring his driving directions. This may sound rather cold to some, waiting until I choose to talk rather than asking me what's wrong, but it works for me because until I know myself what's wrong, asking will only make me more frustrated with my own behaviour and result in more moodyness (and ignoring of driving directions). Oh, and the not asking only applies to the wierd moods, not the palpably upset moods.
So...it's still shitty February, and now it's raining to boot, but it's only February for 4 more days, then it's March, and my parents are visiting, and for me that's a good exciting thing, not something to be stressed over, because they easily entertain themselves following me around for whatever stuff I have to get done and we'll still have plenty of time to sit about talking, and for them to get to know Matt.
It's still shitty February but at least I'm not fruitcaking myself into spasms worrying about what happens while I'm sleeping.
I will also learn (eventually) that a quiet, briefly worded response doesn't indicate unhappiness or resentment, it indicates acceptance. Thanks to Kenny C. for that last hangup.
I have a wonderful, patient man who sees I'm having trouble, and waits until I figure out what's wrong and come talk to him, even if that means weathering me being wierdly moody and ignoring his driving directions. This may sound rather cold to some, waiting until I choose to talk rather than asking me what's wrong, but it works for me because until I know myself what's wrong, asking will only make me more frustrated with my own behaviour and result in more moodyness (and ignoring of driving directions). Oh, and the not asking only applies to the wierd moods, not the palpably upset moods.
So...it's still shitty February, and now it's raining to boot, but it's only February for 4 more days, then it's March, and my parents are visiting, and for me that's a good exciting thing, not something to be stressed over, because they easily entertain themselves following me around for whatever stuff I have to get done and we'll still have plenty of time to sit about talking, and for them to get to know Matt.
It's still shitty February but at least I'm not fruitcaking myself into spasms worrying about what happens while I'm sleeping.
Monday, February 24, 2003
I think my usually shitty January has transferred itself to a shitty February. Or maybe it's just winter all round, this whole quarter-year is one I generally get the blues through anyway.
Unfortunately it's just another bout of combining factors, none of which are anyone's fault (except maybe the BS at work) and all of which will go away in time, though not by my staring at them and willing them to *poof* dissapear. The biggest one currently seems to be the American idea that two weeks of vacation time for an entire year is more than enough to keep the workers rested and happy, thus leading to work hard, play hard and leaving rest and relaxation by the wayside, whimpering into it's mug of hot chocolate while trying to erect a broken deckchair.
Heh, just that little random image cheered me up. Probably because rest and relaxation was also wearing fuzzy slippers and one of those ridiculous beach hats that my Grandad used to wear for gardening.
Unfortunately it's just another bout of combining factors, none of which are anyone's fault (except maybe the BS at work) and all of which will go away in time, though not by my staring at them and willing them to *poof* dissapear. The biggest one currently seems to be the American idea that two weeks of vacation time for an entire year is more than enough to keep the workers rested and happy, thus leading to work hard, play hard and leaving rest and relaxation by the wayside, whimpering into it's mug of hot chocolate while trying to erect a broken deckchair.
Heh, just that little random image cheered me up. Probably because rest and relaxation was also wearing fuzzy slippers and one of those ridiculous beach hats that my Grandad used to wear for gardening.
Thursday, February 20, 2003
Monday, February 17, 2003
Somehow we shall continue to improve our fitness levels and decrease our weights... while I insist on making toffee-chip tollhouse cookies and keep thinking up new variations on cakes to make for everybody. Is it possible that I missed baking? Naw, not at all, I only used to bake a cake most weekends back home, and when I was at college I'd bake something almost every time I went home for the weekend.
However the theory seems to be holding true, I'm pretty sure I gained a little over christmas, but it could also have been leftover bloat from my momentary pregnancy turning into bloat from dehydration, flying and lots and lots and lots or French wine. I finally got up the courage to weight myself again last week, after an absence form the scales of almost two months, and found that I'd dropped either 5 or 10lb more than last time I checked (I can't remember the exact previous weight, but I know I hadn't broken a certin threshold yet). Either way, I know for a fact that this makes a total of just over 40lb lost in a year. 40lb of FAT, pure lard, that I have discarded, actually more than 40lb of lard has gone bye-bye, because I've built muscle-mass too.
So, hooray for whatever it is I'm doing now, and long may it continue. I'm liking this healthy feeling.
However the theory seems to be holding true, I'm pretty sure I gained a little over christmas, but it could also have been leftover bloat from my momentary pregnancy turning into bloat from dehydration, flying and lots and lots and lots or French wine. I finally got up the courage to weight myself again last week, after an absence form the scales of almost two months, and found that I'd dropped either 5 or 10lb more than last time I checked (I can't remember the exact previous weight, but I know I hadn't broken a certin threshold yet). Either way, I know for a fact that this makes a total of just over 40lb lost in a year. 40lb of FAT, pure lard, that I have discarded, actually more than 40lb of lard has gone bye-bye, because I've built muscle-mass too.
So, hooray for whatever it is I'm doing now, and long may it continue. I'm liking this healthy feeling.
Saturday, February 15, 2003
I keep feeling the need to sit down and write (or type) but I never seem to get around to doing it, or when I do, my mind alternates between completely blank and way too much stuff to make sense of.
I got carded for cigarettes for the first time in a while, probably something to do with having had most of my hair cut off, so now it's in a cropped curly/wavy messy but very stylish arrangement. Apparantly I look a great deal younger now. It's a little odd to realise that somewhere along the way I crossed the line into thinking of looking younger as a good thing, rather than an inconvenience.
It's near impossible to describe hairstyles beyond "short" vs "long" so: it's short, decidedly shorter than anything that could be called a "bob", but defintely not "cropped" or butch (thanks for that one Marc). I'm also having to fight an urge to make all kinds of silly references to my friend Bob, to whom I had to explain the meaning of the word "bob" in a hairdressing context.
Matt got all his furniture moved in and arranged in his new place, so he's now living about a block and a half away from me, and so is all his stuff. No more hour round-trip drives to pick up something forgotten at the other place. Coincidentally it's three months to the day since I started the move out of my last apartment. I can't believe it's been a quarter of a year since I moved onwards and upwards from the fourth floor to the almost-basement.
I've had a couple of reminders recently of what life was like for me a year ago, indeed, through the whole past year, all the ongoing changes; some gradual, some huge leaps that caught me by surprise weeks later when I realised how different everything had become, and yet how natural the new situation felt. Of course it's a great big plum pudding mix of external and internal changes: losing weight/gaining muscle, throwing out some long standing inhibitions that were way past their sell by date, gaining strengths, finding some good friends, moving into my own place...and I've lost verbal steam. I started talking guitar with Matt and misplaced my thread. Oh well. Time to get a shower.
I got carded for cigarettes for the first time in a while, probably something to do with having had most of my hair cut off, so now it's in a cropped curly/wavy messy but very stylish arrangement. Apparantly I look a great deal younger now. It's a little odd to realise that somewhere along the way I crossed the line into thinking of looking younger as a good thing, rather than an inconvenience.
It's near impossible to describe hairstyles beyond "short" vs "long" so: it's short, decidedly shorter than anything that could be called a "bob", but defintely not "cropped" or butch (thanks for that one Marc). I'm also having to fight an urge to make all kinds of silly references to my friend Bob, to whom I had to explain the meaning of the word "bob" in a hairdressing context.
Matt got all his furniture moved in and arranged in his new place, so he's now living about a block and a half away from me, and so is all his stuff. No more hour round-trip drives to pick up something forgotten at the other place. Coincidentally it's three months to the day since I started the move out of my last apartment. I can't believe it's been a quarter of a year since I moved onwards and upwards from the fourth floor to the almost-basement.
I've had a couple of reminders recently of what life was like for me a year ago, indeed, through the whole past year, all the ongoing changes; some gradual, some huge leaps that caught me by surprise weeks later when I realised how different everything had become, and yet how natural the new situation felt. Of course it's a great big plum pudding mix of external and internal changes: losing weight/gaining muscle, throwing out some long standing inhibitions that were way past their sell by date, gaining strengths, finding some good friends, moving into my own place...and I've lost verbal steam. I started talking guitar with Matt and misplaced my thread. Oh well. Time to get a shower.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Every time you see my apartment something has been moved or there's new furniture...
This can no longer happen, as my apartment is now officially full to capacity. Just right at the capacity level fortunately, not overflowing. I found a desk I liked, and that was an agreeable price too, and it fits perfectly. This also can be translated as "it only just fits", both are true. I'm not quite used to the new arrangement yet, there is a definite need for pictures of some variety on the walls now; the best thing is that the desk lamp has banished the slight lack of ambient light that was beginning to bother me. I'm not a fan of gloom.
Rainy day today, I'm very much voting in favour of nap-time, but unfortunately I have this thing called a job, so the nap will have to wait until this evening.
This can no longer happen, as my apartment is now officially full to capacity. Just right at the capacity level fortunately, not overflowing. I found a desk I liked, and that was an agreeable price too, and it fits perfectly. This also can be translated as "it only just fits", both are true. I'm not quite used to the new arrangement yet, there is a definite need for pictures of some variety on the walls now; the best thing is that the desk lamp has banished the slight lack of ambient light that was beginning to bother me. I'm not a fan of gloom.
Rainy day today, I'm very much voting in favour of nap-time, but unfortunately I have this thing called a job, so the nap will have to wait until this evening.
Thursday, February 06, 2003
I'm hosting my first ever party on Saturday. Not a little gathering, but a real party, with a theme and everything. The theme is spreading the joys of traditional Christmas Pudding to the various international peoples of my lab. With the added bonus that Rohan was deprived of "chrissie pud" this last festive season, as he was in Wisconsin, and not Australia, so he gets his pudding fix.
Of course, this party will be held mostly on my patio, as the apartment is way too small to fit a dozen people comfortably enough to allow little luxieries such as sitting down, and movement.
Holy Flaming Brandy Batman, I'd better make a shopping list and go fill it. I was starting to dread this gathering, thinking "What have I DONE??" and imagining everybody being way too cramped and having nowhere to sit, the pudding being burnt and a small riot of hungry scientists demanding to be fed. Then I realised that they're all nice people, and even if the pudding is a disaster, we can all go for sushi along University Avenue as a substitute.
Of course, this party will be held mostly on my patio, as the apartment is way too small to fit a dozen people comfortably enough to allow little luxieries such as sitting down, and movement.
Holy Flaming Brandy Batman, I'd better make a shopping list and go fill it. I was starting to dread this gathering, thinking "What have I DONE??" and imagining everybody being way too cramped and having nowhere to sit, the pudding being burnt and a small riot of hungry scientists demanding to be fed. Then I realised that they're all nice people, and even if the pudding is a disaster, we can all go for sushi along University Avenue as a substitute.
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
What a full weekend, I don't think I'll be able to get it all up here without boring everybody (including myself) to death. Many fun things are exceedingly tedious when recounted.
Suffice it to say that it was the best birthday weekend I can remember, without feeling like I was being made too much of a fuss of, which always ends up feeling somewhat superficial: "we're only here because it's your birthday and we have to..." There was much genial friendliness and even more aimless wandering about Baloboa Park. I got a nifty decorative lamp and a large blue and grey stoneware bowl and matching pitcher. I narrowly escaped being given a diamond ring too, but not in the context you'll assume I'm sure.
The weekends are getting better and better, I just need to work on the bits in between, the days commonly referred to as "work.
Suffice it to say that it was the best birthday weekend I can remember, without feeling like I was being made too much of a fuss of, which always ends up feeling somewhat superficial: "we're only here because it's your birthday and we have to..." There was much genial friendliness and even more aimless wandering about Baloboa Park. I got a nifty decorative lamp and a large blue and grey stoneware bowl and matching pitcher. I narrowly escaped being given a diamond ring too, but not in the context you'll assume I'm sure.
The weekends are getting better and better, I just need to work on the bits in between, the days commonly referred to as "work.
Friday, January 31, 2003
Always. Frequently. Sometimes. Rarely. Never.
Those are the options I'm given when I fill out the mandatory update form at my counsellor's office to see if I'm still dysfunctional enough to warrant treatment. My answers have improved (in the sense of the state of mental health they indicate) and the general gist has changed a lot over the months, leaning away from depression and tending more to anxiety. Maybe not the best of solutions, but I can make anxiety work for me a hell of a lot easier than depression.
I usually end up picking either "frequently" or "rarely", the only time I use "never" is in the questions relating to substance abuse, and I don't recall having used "always". It's so definitive, there's so few things that one can confidently apply it to. So I end up sounding like a noncomittal depressive. Anxiotic. Ummm... is there an "-ive" for people suffering from anxiety disorders?
My point is this: there is a world of difference between "never" and "rarely", and just as much of a world between "frequently" and "always". Imagine a friend who always, without exception, turns any situation to being about them and their difficulties, then imagine a friend who does it frequently, but there are still things that remain yours, or a third party's...you probably wouldn't remain around the former very long, but the latter could easily be a good friendship, as long as you can see past the self obsessive tendencies.
I realise that so many negative "never" and "always" things have been eliminated in my life, or downgraded to "rarely" and "frequently" or even the middle-ground "sometimes". On top of that I've gained many positive versions too. Yet sometimes I still focus on the occasional "never" that won't go away. Or the "rarely" that feels like it should be a "sometimes".
I feel as though I have all the right ingredients now, or nearly all. No, I take that back: the only remaining ingredients to be found are seasonings, garnish, the base is there. So I have all the right ingredients... I just need to adjust some of the proportions, or maybe my sense of proportion with regards to some ingredients. A litte more of this a little less of that. Change this one from a smidgen to a splash and that one from a chunk to a chip.
Good Gods, I'm talking in code. But it's mostly for my own benefit anyway, I know what I'm talking about, and by talking about it I've remembered that I really do have the right basic ingredients, and that's something I was nowhere near having a year and a half ago.
So hooray for investigative cooking in the game of life. Experimentation in the creative process of the confection that is my life. It's turning into a damn fine cake, I don't need to fret about the frosting really, it's not the most important part.
Those are the options I'm given when I fill out the mandatory update form at my counsellor's office to see if I'm still dysfunctional enough to warrant treatment. My answers have improved (in the sense of the state of mental health they indicate) and the general gist has changed a lot over the months, leaning away from depression and tending more to anxiety. Maybe not the best of solutions, but I can make anxiety work for me a hell of a lot easier than depression.
I usually end up picking either "frequently" or "rarely", the only time I use "never" is in the questions relating to substance abuse, and I don't recall having used "always". It's so definitive, there's so few things that one can confidently apply it to. So I end up sounding like a noncomittal depressive. Anxiotic. Ummm... is there an "-ive" for people suffering from anxiety disorders?
My point is this: there is a world of difference between "never" and "rarely", and just as much of a world between "frequently" and "always". Imagine a friend who always, without exception, turns any situation to being about them and their difficulties, then imagine a friend who does it frequently, but there are still things that remain yours, or a third party's...you probably wouldn't remain around the former very long, but the latter could easily be a good friendship, as long as you can see past the self obsessive tendencies.
I realise that so many negative "never" and "always" things have been eliminated in my life, or downgraded to "rarely" and "frequently" or even the middle-ground "sometimes". On top of that I've gained many positive versions too. Yet sometimes I still focus on the occasional "never" that won't go away. Or the "rarely" that feels like it should be a "sometimes".
I feel as though I have all the right ingredients now, or nearly all. No, I take that back: the only remaining ingredients to be found are seasonings, garnish, the base is there. So I have all the right ingredients... I just need to adjust some of the proportions, or maybe my sense of proportion with regards to some ingredients. A litte more of this a little less of that. Change this one from a smidgen to a splash and that one from a chunk to a chip.
Good Gods, I'm talking in code. But it's mostly for my own benefit anyway, I know what I'm talking about, and by talking about it I've remembered that I really do have the right basic ingredients, and that's something I was nowhere near having a year and a half ago.
So hooray for investigative cooking in the game of life. Experimentation in the creative process of the confection that is my life. It's turning into a damn fine cake, I don't need to fret about the frosting really, it's not the most important part.
Thursday, January 30, 2003
One nifty random thing I forgot to mention about the new Fluffcomp. When I signed up for the trial period of MSN explorer, it gave me a little icon for my account (and then a different one for Matt when I made him a user account), the icon it randomly assigned to me is a girl in a very Tang Soo Do-like uniform, in mid flying-side-kick. She even looks a little like Pinguino, I think it's an omen, though whether of happy computer usage or of a black belt in the future for me, I don't know.
Matt's icon is a pair of deck chairs on a beach, so clearly my computer isn't quite as good at guessing his identity.
I wish I had a vacation day to use tomorrow, I can console myself with the thought that my NEXT birthday will be on a Saturday. Matt picks up the keys to his new place tomorrow after work, so we will have a double celebration in the evening. We're going out for a proper meal and everything, all dressed up and stuff.
Matt's icon is a pair of deck chairs on a beach, so clearly my computer isn't quite as good at guessing his identity.
I wish I had a vacation day to use tomorrow, I can console myself with the thought that my NEXT birthday will be on a Saturday. Matt picks up the keys to his new place tomorrow after work, so we will have a double celebration in the evening. We're going out for a proper meal and everything, all dressed up and stuff.
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
*pirouettes around the bedroom*. Apartment. Same thing in my world really innit?
Let's just take a short break to wonder where the hell the word "innit" came from in my London-influenced subconcious.
OK, that's long enough.
This is solely to announce that I am now a web-enabled owner of an HP 523n Desktop. Boxtop currently, as it's sitting on top of it's own box until I get a desk for it to live on.
Let's just take a short break to wonder where the hell the word "innit" came from in my London-influenced subconcious.
OK, that's long enough.
This is solely to announce that I am now a web-enabled owner of an HP 523n Desktop. Boxtop currently, as it's sitting on top of it's own box until I get a desk for it to live on.
I suppose I'm glad I had my second depo shot on Friday, rather than on Monday as I'd planned, because then I would have had this migraine on my birthday. I realise that I've had many fewer migraines than usual since starting on this stuff, though it also coincides closely with leaving my last apartment, so I can't be sure it isn't change of environment leading to reduced stress.
This weekend, Gods willing, I may even get a computer. I have located my victim (an HP in case anyone's wondering) but I have to decide if it would add too much chaos to my apartment to bring in new machinery before the table project is completed. I need to get that thing varnished, so it can be used as well as admired. Having said that, I may just go and look at Circuit City tonight, see if they can offer me the same deal as HP online.
This weekend, Gods willing, I may even get a computer. I have located my victim (an HP in case anyone's wondering) but I have to decide if it would add too much chaos to my apartment to bring in new machinery before the table project is completed. I need to get that thing varnished, so it can be used as well as admired. Having said that, I may just go and look at Circuit City tonight, see if they can offer me the same deal as HP online.
Monday, January 27, 2003
We had one of those talks last night.
With anyone else those talks are a bad thing, full of tension and unspoken wants and resentments. With Matt...we sit and have a genial conversation about what we each like and dislike about our relationship. When I say dislike, it's really more a case of "Well I'd like a bit less of this and bit more of that, but that other thing you're worried about, doesn't bother me at all."
We do that every now and then, sit about objectively discussing our relationship. Talking about how it is rather comical that he's now going to be living a block (plus half a house) away from me, but that we're glad to be doing it this way, and we'll end up living together soon enough anyway. Talking about how it's surprising that both of us are happy being around each other all the time, that we don't get sick of each other, when we're both a little withdrawn and reclusive in general (yes I am, you just don't get to see it because when I'm being reclusive I'm, well, not there). We can talk about all these things without it being a game of trying to find the truth hidden in the heap of insinuations, because what we say to each other is what we mean. That level of truth and trust is something I doubted really existed before I met Matt, especially with the trends of all the people I've known through the years.
It's marvellous to me how we can talk about the supposedly big scary internal issues and it feels like a friendly chat over coffee. The most tense we get with each other is when one of us is worrying that the other isn't happy, and maybe it's something to do with "us". Then we touch base, look each other in the eye and say I am so lucky to have you, to have this friendship and love with you, everything else is better just because I have your face at the end of the day...
Life may not be any simpler because of it, but it feels like less of a monumental challenge to get on with it now.
With anyone else those talks are a bad thing, full of tension and unspoken wants and resentments. With Matt...we sit and have a genial conversation about what we each like and dislike about our relationship. When I say dislike, it's really more a case of "Well I'd like a bit less of this and bit more of that, but that other thing you're worried about, doesn't bother me at all."
We do that every now and then, sit about objectively discussing our relationship. Talking about how it is rather comical that he's now going to be living a block (plus half a house) away from me, but that we're glad to be doing it this way, and we'll end up living together soon enough anyway. Talking about how it's surprising that both of us are happy being around each other all the time, that we don't get sick of each other, when we're both a little withdrawn and reclusive in general (yes I am, you just don't get to see it because when I'm being reclusive I'm, well, not there). We can talk about all these things without it being a game of trying to find the truth hidden in the heap of insinuations, because what we say to each other is what we mean. That level of truth and trust is something I doubted really existed before I met Matt, especially with the trends of all the people I've known through the years.
It's marvellous to me how we can talk about the supposedly big scary internal issues and it feels like a friendly chat over coffee. The most tense we get with each other is when one of us is worrying that the other isn't happy, and maybe it's something to do with "us". Then we touch base, look each other in the eye and say I am so lucky to have you, to have this friendship and love with you, everything else is better just because I have your face at the end of the day...
Life may not be any simpler because of it, but it feels like less of a monumental challenge to get on with it now.
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
And another thing...
I'm also getting back into the swing of cooking, something I had been out of practice doing for several months by the time I moved, and it's not just cooking for myself, it's for two of us, with someone else's tastes and preferences to consider. This will get much less stressful once it has passed into the realms of routine, and when I learn to ask for more help.
That last statment probably applies a great deal to my life in general.
I'm also getting back into the swing of cooking, something I had been out of practice doing for several months by the time I moved, and it's not just cooking for myself, it's for two of us, with someone else's tastes and preferences to consider. This will get much less stressful once it has passed into the realms of routine, and when I learn to ask for more help.
That last statment probably applies a great deal to my life in general.
Coffee, more coffee please...
I'm waiting for it to be 9am, so I can call and make an extra appointment to ask a woman who has seen the inside of my head why I still weep in my sleep when I think that I'm happy. Why I feel sick and wracked with misery, but have not the faintest idea why, because if you ask me, I'm happy. All the reasons that come to mind seem so ineffectual. "I don't love my job, I don't hate it, but it's frustrating in a way I'm ready to be rid of" "It's January, I always get blue in January" "He was away for two weeks and it sucked, so now he's back I'm crying about it" "I'm stressing about money because I've bought so much furniture this month" "My apartment is in huge disarray because of said furniture being mid-assembly"
Maybe (yet again) it's E: all of the above. Combined little factors making me stressed out, but stress isn't supposed to have this effect. This is closer to depressed for me, but it doesn't feel like depression, it isn't as heavy somehow.
I think I didn't expect the crying fits to be one of the things that would hang around after I'd faced up to myself, I expected the leftovers to be occasional flashbacks, a continued inability to hear some stories or kinds of jokes, the need to leave the room at certain points in movies. All I could think of this morning was that Matt had lain awake almost all night hearing me weep, wondering what was wrong, and he still reached over and touched my cheek, kissed my shoulder and held me tight as though I wasn't scaring him. It would terrify me, hearing him cry out and not being able to do anything to soothe him.
Now I'm remembering something I told him the weekend we went to Kern County, I'd been having the same problems then, barely making it through the day without collapsing somewhere to cry, but that was because of the build up of tension in my old apartment, and the fact that I hadn't told him much about my problems with depression and I was starting to feel dishonest. I told him that it's almost like an epileptic fit sometimes, I'll just suddenly be crying and feeling like shit, and there won't be a reason. That the best thing he can do is to hold my hand and let me ride it out.
Wow, it's 9.30 already, and I've almost figured it out all by myself. I'm still going to make the appointment though, that's what she's there for.
This has to go away, I won't allow it to be a permanent fixture. Maybe when the magical day comes that there is no drama (yeah right...), there will also be no freakouts. It's ok if it's just me, it's bad having Matt affected by it, but I keep getting this image of a little kid peeking around a doorway to see me sobbing in my bedroom, just like I saw my sister crying inconsolably when she was 16 and I was 7, it didn't traumatise me, but I still remember it. I don't want to be that woman, I don't want to make that kind of memory for my children.
I'm waiting for it to be 9am, so I can call and make an extra appointment to ask a woman who has seen the inside of my head why I still weep in my sleep when I think that I'm happy. Why I feel sick and wracked with misery, but have not the faintest idea why, because if you ask me, I'm happy. All the reasons that come to mind seem so ineffectual. "I don't love my job, I don't hate it, but it's frustrating in a way I'm ready to be rid of" "It's January, I always get blue in January" "He was away for two weeks and it sucked, so now he's back I'm crying about it" "I'm stressing about money because I've bought so much furniture this month" "My apartment is in huge disarray because of said furniture being mid-assembly"
Maybe (yet again) it's E: all of the above. Combined little factors making me stressed out, but stress isn't supposed to have this effect. This is closer to depressed for me, but it doesn't feel like depression, it isn't as heavy somehow.
I think I didn't expect the crying fits to be one of the things that would hang around after I'd faced up to myself, I expected the leftovers to be occasional flashbacks, a continued inability to hear some stories or kinds of jokes, the need to leave the room at certain points in movies. All I could think of this morning was that Matt had lain awake almost all night hearing me weep, wondering what was wrong, and he still reached over and touched my cheek, kissed my shoulder and held me tight as though I wasn't scaring him. It would terrify me, hearing him cry out and not being able to do anything to soothe him.
Now I'm remembering something I told him the weekend we went to Kern County, I'd been having the same problems then, barely making it through the day without collapsing somewhere to cry, but that was because of the build up of tension in my old apartment, and the fact that I hadn't told him much about my problems with depression and I was starting to feel dishonest. I told him that it's almost like an epileptic fit sometimes, I'll just suddenly be crying and feeling like shit, and there won't be a reason. That the best thing he can do is to hold my hand and let me ride it out.
Wow, it's 9.30 already, and I've almost figured it out all by myself. I'm still going to make the appointment though, that's what she's there for.
This has to go away, I won't allow it to be a permanent fixture. Maybe when the magical day comes that there is no drama (yeah right...), there will also be no freakouts. It's ok if it's just me, it's bad having Matt affected by it, but I keep getting this image of a little kid peeking around a doorway to see me sobbing in my bedroom, just like I saw my sister crying inconsolably when she was 16 and I was 7, it didn't traumatise me, but I still remember it. I don't want to be that woman, I don't want to make that kind of memory for my children.
Friday, January 17, 2003
Tonight's going to be fun, starting with an emergency trip to the airport to ensure Radiskull's passage to Berkeley is achived in a timely manner, followed by grocery shopping, table shopping (and chairs and wood stain and brushes shopping), cooking, eating, tidying, hanging out with Bob, packing up a minimalist waffle-making kit to take to La Mesa and finishing off with a second trip to the airport to collect a sleepy, frostbitten and homesick Matt.
OK so he's not actually frostbitten, but he has got an injured toe, so I took creative liscence.
Funny thing is, the prospect of all this isn't stressful, or overwhelming, or anything along those lines. Sometimes it's really great to zoom about getting things done, and it's all in the name of good causes. Causes like friends going home, eating curry, owning a table (and chairs and wood stain and brushes...) bringing waffly goodness to one much in need of home-cooking, and getting Matt back in San Diego. Especially the last one.
Happy Friday everyone, keep your fingers crossed for miraculously light traffic on 5 South.
OK so he's not actually frostbitten, but he has got an injured toe, so I took creative liscence.
Funny thing is, the prospect of all this isn't stressful, or overwhelming, or anything along those lines. Sometimes it's really great to zoom about getting things done, and it's all in the name of good causes. Causes like friends going home, eating curry, owning a table (and chairs and wood stain and brushes...) bringing waffly goodness to one much in need of home-cooking, and getting Matt back in San Diego. Especially the last one.
Happy Friday everyone, keep your fingers crossed for miraculously light traffic on 5 South.
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Three days to go!
It is also my Mum's birthday tomorrow, I hope I remember to call her before I go to work.
The trip up to LA was a great success, I feel more relaxed there now for some reason, maybe it's that I'm feeling less and less like a strange intrusion into my Californian family's life. Aunt Susan plotting an impromptu early birthday lunch for me was so sweet, she explained it by "well, we never do anything for you Rosie", which is typical Susan logic, and completely untrue if yo ask me, they are always warm and open, welcoming to me simply because I'm family. They're proud of me for what I've accomplished, though is seems so little to me, and even if they know of the more spectacular failures and mistakes (Granny at the very least must have figured some of it out) it doesn't seem to factor in.
What's more, they gave me a waffle iron, so they must love me!
Being up in LA also enabled me to forget that Matt is currently on the other side of the country, even though he called to tell me about exploring many historical sites over there with his Mom.
Soon I won't have to worry about that though, because he'll be home and I'll be feeding him waffles until he pleads for mercy. Between December and January we'll have had a whole month apart, thankfully we had a week in the middle of it to regroup, store up snuggles, and exchange yule gifts.
Friday, January 10, 2003
That's the last time I read a novel containing a powerful love story while my partner is away. Last night I wanted to turn to Matt and show him the things in the story that I feel we also have, and talk about how we have it so much better than the star-crossed lovers in my book. As it was I had to keep these things to myself and ended up dwelling on the other theme of the book, which was the debate over whether something has to endure to be worthy, and if so, then is anything worth it, because our lives are all so temporary anyway... I had a night of very strange dreams, the internal motivations of which I can't begin to figure out, but it was kind of part of an old running theme so I'm not going to try to dissect it too hard.
I'm a little ashamed of myself for calling him at 5am PST to announce that I couldn't sleep and I missed him, while he sat in class, I was also highly incoherant as my mouth wasn't nearly so awake as my overactive imagination. It's the only such incident in over nine months, so it's not a bad average, and maybe it'll teach him to talk to me the next time he's sleepless with homework anxiety, instead of letting me sleep and driving himself quietly crazy.
Ho-hum, he'll be back in a week, refilling the Matt-shaped hole he left behind in my life and hopefully helping me paint my table. The design for which I suppose I should try to figure out this weekend, I'll take my notebook and William Morris samples up to LA with me when I visit Granny. Along with my poor neglected guitar, I want to have some beginnings of calluses on my fingertips to show off by next week.
On the grander theme of permanence, my take on it is that continuity isn't the be-all and end-all of what is wonderful in this life, because we are constantly in transit. A love doesn't have to last a lifetime to be considered a "true" love, and often things achieve more meaning by being transiently beautiful, as it makes you focus in every moment of it's presence. This attitude may be due to the fact that I've never had to live through a great loss, I've seen the grief it causes up close and personal, in my family and friends, but not in myself. There has been one great loss of my own, but I didn't recognise it as such at the time, and by the time I realised I was in need of mourning I was already aware of how much I had gained as a side-effect of that loss. So much so that the departure of what had been taken from me seemed rather insignificant in the end. I still light a candle in my mind for my younger self every spring, but it is the echoes of loss in others that makes me wonder what it will be like when it is my turn to carry a flame of memory for a loved one lost.
I'm a little ashamed of myself for calling him at 5am PST to announce that I couldn't sleep and I missed him, while he sat in class, I was also highly incoherant as my mouth wasn't nearly so awake as my overactive imagination. It's the only such incident in over nine months, so it's not a bad average, and maybe it'll teach him to talk to me the next time he's sleepless with homework anxiety, instead of letting me sleep and driving himself quietly crazy.
Ho-hum, he'll be back in a week, refilling the Matt-shaped hole he left behind in my life and hopefully helping me paint my table. The design for which I suppose I should try to figure out this weekend, I'll take my notebook and William Morris samples up to LA with me when I visit Granny. Along with my poor neglected guitar, I want to have some beginnings of calluses on my fingertips to show off by next week.
On the grander theme of permanence, my take on it is that continuity isn't the be-all and end-all of what is wonderful in this life, because we are constantly in transit. A love doesn't have to last a lifetime to be considered a "true" love, and often things achieve more meaning by being transiently beautiful, as it makes you focus in every moment of it's presence. This attitude may be due to the fact that I've never had to live through a great loss, I've seen the grief it causes up close and personal, in my family and friends, but not in myself. There has been one great loss of my own, but I didn't recognise it as such at the time, and by the time I realised I was in need of mourning I was already aware of how much I had gained as a side-effect of that loss. So much so that the departure of what had been taken from me seemed rather insignificant in the end. I still light a candle in my mind for my younger self every spring, but it is the echoes of loss in others that makes me wonder what it will be like when it is my turn to carry a flame of memory for a loved one lost.
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
I am still alive.
Just in case anyone was wondering.
Work = meh, but that's usually the case.
Friends = great.
Flat = home for sure.
Family = too far away but spectacular cooks and good company to boot.
Matt = away. This sucks, but will soon be rectified by his return from the business trip to Snowdonia. *wink
Life = good, real and unfluffy in places, but excellent over all.
Love = see above, section "Matt"
Just in case anyone was wondering.
Work = meh, but that's usually the case.
Friends = great.
Flat = home for sure.
Family = too far away but spectacular cooks and good company to boot.
Matt = away. This sucks, but will soon be rectified by his return from the business trip to Snowdonia. *wink
Life = good, real and unfluffy in places, but excellent over all.
Love = see above, section "Matt"
Thursday, December 19, 2002
If questioning would make us wise
no eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
if all our tale were told in speech
no mouths would wonder each to each.
Were spirits free from mortal mesh
and love not bound in hearts of flesh
no aching breasts would yearn to meet
and find their ecstasy complete.
For who is there that lives and knows
the secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
to thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?
Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.
-Bill Archer.
no eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
if all our tale were told in speech
no mouths would wonder each to each.
Were spirits free from mortal mesh
and love not bound in hearts of flesh
no aching breasts would yearn to meet
and find their ecstasy complete.
For who is there that lives and knows
the secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
to thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?
Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.
-Bill Archer.
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
The grass is still covered in frost, and it's past noon. It's still crunchy spearmint grey, I watched Fezzie, one of my cats, pick his way across the lawn, imagining his bare paw pads burning from the cold. He looked distinctly unimpressed with the situation, I could practically hear him swearing under his fishy breath. (Cats always have fishy breath, even if they live on Science Diet)
Inigo is much more sensible, he is curled up next to the base of a radiator in the hallway, in a patch of sun from the big window in the stairwell. The sun doesn't make much difference to temperature outside in the freezing air, but behind glass it is a little warming. Inigo knows how to weather through the winter.
As I human I have the advantage of being able to resort to clothing to keep my paw pads warm. Fuzzy woolly socks and equally fuzzy woolly gloves, no tiptoing barefoot through the frost for me thank you very much.
Time to get dressed and head back into town. Only one and a half more days in Scotland, then it's on to the south of France. I wish I had a little more time here, but I'm pretty sure if I were here for the whole two weeks I'd have just ended up leaving everything until the last minute, at least this way I've been pretty efficient in my usage of time. I have bought most of the Tartan Tat (scottish-themed souvenirs) I wanted to take back, and located a gift for everyone on my list. All I need to get are the foody items I promised to take for people. I can get those tomorrow.
Inigo is much more sensible, he is curled up next to the base of a radiator in the hallway, in a patch of sun from the big window in the stairwell. The sun doesn't make much difference to temperature outside in the freezing air, but behind glass it is a little warming. Inigo knows how to weather through the winter.
As I human I have the advantage of being able to resort to clothing to keep my paw pads warm. Fuzzy woolly socks and equally fuzzy woolly gloves, no tiptoing barefoot through the frost for me thank you very much.
Time to get dressed and head back into town. Only one and a half more days in Scotland, then it's on to the south of France. I wish I had a little more time here, but I'm pretty sure if I were here for the whole two weeks I'd have just ended up leaving everything until the last minute, at least this way I've been pretty efficient in my usage of time. I have bought most of the Tartan Tat (scottish-themed souvenirs) I wanted to take back, and located a gift for everyone on my list. All I need to get are the foody items I promised to take for people. I can get those tomorrow.
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Now I know why I didn't get in the habit of wearing high heeled shoes of any variety while I lived in Edinburgh. Cobbled streets. And hills, steep hills and steeper little closes (alleys) that make shortcuts between streets on different levels.
CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP. This is the sound of me striding down Fleshmarket Close in my chunky red boots. CLOMP CLOMP CL-stagger-OMP. This is the sound of me narrowly avoiding: a - twisting my ankle; b - falling on my arse; c - staggering into oncoming traffic; or d - all of the above, while crossing Cockburn street, which is cobbled and steep.
It was well and truly cold today, only just above freezing in fact. It made a nice change for me. I have a warm jacket, having added woolly hat, scarf and gloves to make it draft-proof, I was able to stride about town all day, blowing misty air from my mouth and feeling my cheeks going bright pink from the sting of the air. It was lovely and still today, wind would have made the cold much less fun, and the sky was a clear icy blue, allowing the sun through to paint everything yellow (but not affect the temperature one little bit). Unlike the perma-grey that has been in force since I arrived, today there was real daylight and everything! For several hours.
CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP. This is the sound of me striding down Fleshmarket Close in my chunky red boots. CLOMP CLOMP CL-stagger-OMP. This is the sound of me narrowly avoiding: a - twisting my ankle; b - falling on my arse; c - staggering into oncoming traffic; or d - all of the above, while crossing Cockburn street, which is cobbled and steep.
It was well and truly cold today, only just above freezing in fact. It made a nice change for me. I have a warm jacket, having added woolly hat, scarf and gloves to make it draft-proof, I was able to stride about town all day, blowing misty air from my mouth and feeling my cheeks going bright pink from the sting of the air. It was lovely and still today, wind would have made the cold much less fun, and the sky was a clear icy blue, allowing the sun through to paint everything yellow (but not affect the temperature one little bit). Unlike the perma-grey that has been in force since I arrived, today there was real daylight and everything! For several hours.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
It is officially winter. The duvet has been released from its cramped confinement in a duffel bag under my bed, unfurled from its summer hibernation and draped across the bed to insulate my winter slumbers. It remains as yet uncovered, because wrestling with a king-sized duvet cover in the dark at midnight is not my idea of a good time.
Suddenly all is warm snugglies, with the squishy weight of feathers keeping us cozy. I find it much easier to sleep with the feeling of covers over me, so much so that even in an August heat wave in New Mexico I couldn't sleep without at least a sheet over me.
Tomorrow I'll be going home to an even heavier duvet, a super fluffy construction deep enough to get lost in, highly necessary in the drafty long nights of an Edinburgh winter. Besides which, it's excellent for hiding under and surprising people. Not to mention watching the cats wading across it, with their feet sinking in as though it were an indoor snowdrift.
Cats! I haven't seen my two furballs for a year and a half. I wonder if Inigo will remember me and fall back into the routine of dragging me off to bed at 11pm so that he has access to my room. I wonder if I'll smell like a stranger to them and get ignored. I realize they're they closest thing I have to children, not very close at all really, but I planned their existence and talked my parents into letting Annabelle have just one litter, I've known those two little animals since they were a couple of hours old. I can talk to my parents over the phone, and that compensates for the distance somewhat, but interaction with an animal is wordless, and you can't do that over the phone. Even if Fezzie's purr has occasionally carried down the wires.
Most things about "home" can be replaced or substituted in a new place, you can make your own home. Pick furniture, plan art projects to personalize the place, develop comfort food habits revolving around local specialties, find a new café to inhabit…but it'll be home anew, nowhere can ever be the same as the first place you called home. Not even the original place itself.
I know that when I go back, there will be moments when I'm walking down a street and it could be any point in time since I first walked down it ten or even twenty years ago (though twenty years ago it would be more toddling than walking for me). More often than not I suspect I'll be noticing how different it is, how much more like I remember London being, all the hoards of thirteen year olds with mobile phones and the snazzy sandwich places having replaced the less cosmopolitan teenagers I remember, and the cheap little bakeries that used to sell wonderful greasy pasties and pies for the local workers' lunches.
My parents house will still be both cozy and drafty as hell, but now the kitchen's actually painted, and the shabby beige living room set got sent away and came back after some major reconstructive surgery as a lovely new three piece suite in a nice burnt orange color. Not a single cat claw mark anywhere on them! I'm not even sure if the cats have been allowed to sit on them yet.
I'm going back for a visit, this is the first time it's really been so clearly just for a visit, this is the first time it's going back to where I grew up, not going home. I suppose it isn't even my second home any more, it's "back home" and my flat in North Park (A Community Of San Diego) is "home". I'm making and finding my own traditions and habits, my own signals of the changing seasons. I still can't help hoping that some day I'll live in Edinburgh again, so I can share the things I remember with Matt, and discover together new things about that city, recreate home there for myself with a different perspective.
It may never happen, I won't be distraught if it doesn't, for now it's merely a pleasant idea. A way of keeping homeclose to my heart.
Home is... Cold air and warm sun shining through bare trees. Sparkling frost on the concrete sidewalks before it gets trampled and melted by passers-by. Gusts of cold rain thrashing through my hair as I trudge up Dundas Street towards my bus home, cursing the long skirt of my school uniform that offers no protection against being soaked to my skin. The dreamy near-silence of the summer air, in which everything seems to echo slightly, the sound of my Dad trimming trees, or a car door slamming on the street, that damn bird who's call sounds exactly like our phone, or maybe it is the phone this time. That spot on the edge of Brighton Park that alwayssmells of dog poop, and nobody's ever been able to figure out if it's dogs, or just a really stinky shrub…
Suddenly all is warm snugglies, with the squishy weight of feathers keeping us cozy. I find it much easier to sleep with the feeling of covers over me, so much so that even in an August heat wave in New Mexico I couldn't sleep without at least a sheet over me.
Tomorrow I'll be going home to an even heavier duvet, a super fluffy construction deep enough to get lost in, highly necessary in the drafty long nights of an Edinburgh winter. Besides which, it's excellent for hiding under and surprising people. Not to mention watching the cats wading across it, with their feet sinking in as though it were an indoor snowdrift.
Cats! I haven't seen my two furballs for a year and a half. I wonder if Inigo will remember me and fall back into the routine of dragging me off to bed at 11pm so that he has access to my room. I wonder if I'll smell like a stranger to them and get ignored. I realize they're they closest thing I have to children, not very close at all really, but I planned their existence and talked my parents into letting Annabelle have just one litter, I've known those two little animals since they were a couple of hours old. I can talk to my parents over the phone, and that compensates for the distance somewhat, but interaction with an animal is wordless, and you can't do that over the phone. Even if Fezzie's purr has occasionally carried down the wires.
Most things about "home" can be replaced or substituted in a new place, you can make your own home. Pick furniture, plan art projects to personalize the place, develop comfort food habits revolving around local specialties, find a new café to inhabit…but it'll be home anew, nowhere can ever be the same as the first place you called home. Not even the original place itself.
I know that when I go back, there will be moments when I'm walking down a street and it could be any point in time since I first walked down it ten or even twenty years ago (though twenty years ago it would be more toddling than walking for me). More often than not I suspect I'll be noticing how different it is, how much more like I remember London being, all the hoards of thirteen year olds with mobile phones and the snazzy sandwich places having replaced the less cosmopolitan teenagers I remember, and the cheap little bakeries that used to sell wonderful greasy pasties and pies for the local workers' lunches.
My parents house will still be both cozy and drafty as hell, but now the kitchen's actually painted, and the shabby beige living room set got sent away and came back after some major reconstructive surgery as a lovely new three piece suite in a nice burnt orange color. Not a single cat claw mark anywhere on them! I'm not even sure if the cats have been allowed to sit on them yet.
I'm going back for a visit, this is the first time it's really been so clearly just for a visit, this is the first time it's going back to where I grew up, not going home. I suppose it isn't even my second home any more, it's "back home" and my flat in North Park (A Community Of San Diego) is "home". I'm making and finding my own traditions and habits, my own signals of the changing seasons. I still can't help hoping that some day I'll live in Edinburgh again, so I can share the things I remember with Matt, and discover together new things about that city, recreate home there for myself with a different perspective.
It may never happen, I won't be distraught if it doesn't, for now it's merely a pleasant idea. A way of keeping homeclose to my heart.
Home is... Cold air and warm sun shining through bare trees. Sparkling frost on the concrete sidewalks before it gets trampled and melted by passers-by. Gusts of cold rain thrashing through my hair as I trudge up Dundas Street towards my bus home, cursing the long skirt of my school uniform that offers no protection against being soaked to my skin. The dreamy near-silence of the summer air, in which everything seems to echo slightly, the sound of my Dad trimming trees, or a car door slamming on the street, that damn bird who's call sounds exactly like our phone, or maybe it is the phone this time. That spot on the edge of Brighton Park that alwayssmells of dog poop, and nobody's ever been able to figure out if it's dogs, or just a really stinky shrub…
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
I had some potentially interesting thoughts about gender identity on Saturday, or rather, spurred by Saturday night's hanging out and shooting the shit. I'll probably save that till I've got more time to compose something properly.
I've solved the problem of the generic new and shiny furniture, or at least formulated a plan to. I found an untreated pine table and I'm going to stain it very lightly, and decorate it with both a pyrography wand and some little painted designs, and paint similar designs on a couple of wooden chairs to go with it. It will be very plain furniture, but the decoration will be entirely personal and idiosynchratic. This also turns out to be a pretty darn cheap option, which is always a plus. Especially after paying double rent in December, and funding Christmas presents. I figured out I can get additional storage for my kitchen, the table and two chairs all for about $160, which is a lot less than I was expecting to have to shell out. Of course that doesn't include the cost of stain, paint and lacquer, or the time investment of the decoration, but the cool part about personalizing my kitchen furniture is that it's a project, a creative passtime, and a money saver all at once.
I've solved the problem of the generic new and shiny furniture, or at least formulated a plan to. I found an untreated pine table and I'm going to stain it very lightly, and decorate it with both a pyrography wand and some little painted designs, and paint similar designs on a couple of wooden chairs to go with it. It will be very plain furniture, but the decoration will be entirely personal and idiosynchratic. This also turns out to be a pretty darn cheap option, which is always a plus. Especially after paying double rent in December, and funding Christmas presents. I figured out I can get additional storage for my kitchen, the table and two chairs all for about $160, which is a lot less than I was expecting to have to shell out. Of course that doesn't include the cost of stain, paint and lacquer, or the time investment of the decoration, but the cool part about personalizing my kitchen furniture is that it's a project, a creative passtime, and a money saver all at once.
Thursday, December 05, 2002
In about 169 hours I'll be on my way to the airport to head home. One of my "homes" that is. I confuse myself saying things like "I'll bring stuff from home when I come home". At last count three places qualify as "home": my flat, Matt's place, and Edinburgh. This is a nice change from not to long ago when the internal wail of I wanna go hoooome was met with the realization that I meant Scotland, my parents, the beat up old loveseat under my loft bed and my supersized laid back tabby cat. Now I'm starting to establish a homeyness in my new place, the main thing it's lacking is that "shabby genteel" thing made up of drafty windows, semi-threadbare carpets and junk store furniture that makes my parents' house feel so well lived. I may never get used to how new and shinyeverything is here.
I think the hormonal whirlygig might be starting to wear off. Finally. Today it seems that my biggest quandary is whether or not to return those low-rise jeans I bought online, since they don't actually reveal anything untoward, just threaten to. I need more fashion advisors.
Yeah, I'm definitely shallow today, it's a relief though.
Today's the 8th luniversary too, I don't know how the past two months have gone by so fast, it seems like we only just had our big landmark 6-monther. I suppose that's just more of the whole running along smoothly thing we do so well. It seems silly to count the months now, we're just together, actually looking at the timeframe the numbers seem awfully small.
I think the hormonal whirlygig might be starting to wear off. Finally. Today it seems that my biggest quandary is whether or not to return those low-rise jeans I bought online, since they don't actually reveal anything untoward, just threaten to. I need more fashion advisors.
Yeah, I'm definitely shallow today, it's a relief though.
Today's the 8th luniversary too, I don't know how the past two months have gone by so fast, it seems like we only just had our big landmark 6-monther. I suppose that's just more of the whole running along smoothly thing we do so well. It seems silly to count the months now, we're just together, actually looking at the timeframe the numbers seem awfully small.
Tuesday, December 03, 2002
I have absolutely no idea where to start on the past week. I guess the most important thing to say after that last post is that I'm fine, healthy and as sane as I ever get, all that rot. Well, I've still got an occasional stabbing pain in my left temple, and interesting mood swings taking me from hyper-silly to hyper-depressive inside about 10 minutes. That's not entirely unusual though, migraines and PMS are all par for the course here.
I took a sick day yesterday, originally because the brightness of the kitchen light made me feel sick, while my head was still under the blanket, so Matt fed me Excedrin and I went back to sleep for a few hours. Then it kind of turned into the cliched mental health day. Even more so because the only thing I left my apartment for was to go to a counseling session.
Yesterday was the first time I'd been alone with my own thoughts long enough to figure out what I really felt, and why I felt that way. It's pretty rare for me to find it difficult being around Matt, but sometimes you just need to be alone. Completely alone. Alone and free to pull faces and cry if you need to, or stare at a wall for hours without someone asking if you're ok, to sit and think until there is a solid conclusion formed. The conclusion is that I had one of those significant life occurrences, and it was significant, but it hasn't really changed anything. That's kind of new for me, I'm used to these Life Moments being pretty tumultuous, not minor hiccups.
Only one thing still bothers me: why am I so reluctant to spit it out? Why am I still talking around it? So here we go.
I had a miscarriage last Tuesday. I didn't know, or suspect, I was pregnant, nor would I have kept it had I found out before starting on the Depo- Provera shots. It had gone four weeks at the absolute longest. It both shook me greatly and meant almost nothing to me, I suspect the largest part of the emotional response was due to my hormone levels imitating whirling dervishes. That, and my usual guilt-ridden wondering: if it's ok to not be devastated, then wondering if it's ok to be upset at all when it was really a lucky escape…then feeling guilty for thinking of it as a lucky escape, then realizing how silly thatis…
I suppose I'd always assumed that any unplanned pregnancy stuff would involve being pregnant and aware of it, not an " oh, by the way, you were pregnant for a couple weeks, but its' all over now…"
This happens all the time, every day hundreds of women miscarry, some know they're pregnant, some don't, and some never even realize it happens. It's only a tragedy for those women who desperately want a child. There are so many things that we all go through, and yet they seem utterly monumental at the time it happens to each of us. All the love/death/sex/birth stuff.
I was going somewhere with that I swear. It doesn't really matter though, because everyone knows what I'm talking about, and of the very few who read this I'm sure some are shocked, lots are concerned, and a couple are probably disgusted. Every one of them for their own reasons.
It's unusual for me to have something in my life that I worry about the potential reactions of my good friends, worry that they'll think less of me for it. I suppose it's the hint of irresponsibility, of reckless behavior. Especially on something I like to consider myself super-clued-in about. So maybe this has served as a reminder to me that you don't have to be stupid and irresponsible to get knocked up, you just have to be fertile. It's not having a game plan worked out that's stupid, not accepting that there is a possibility of it happening.
Wow, I've managed to boil this incident down to another trite little life-lesson. Go me!
It's not what happens to you , it's the way you deal with it that makes you who you are.
I took a sick day yesterday, originally because the brightness of the kitchen light made me feel sick, while my head was still under the blanket, so Matt fed me Excedrin and I went back to sleep for a few hours. Then it kind of turned into the cliched mental health day. Even more so because the only thing I left my apartment for was to go to a counseling session.
Yesterday was the first time I'd been alone with my own thoughts long enough to figure out what I really felt, and why I felt that way. It's pretty rare for me to find it difficult being around Matt, but sometimes you just need to be alone. Completely alone. Alone and free to pull faces and cry if you need to, or stare at a wall for hours without someone asking if you're ok, to sit and think until there is a solid conclusion formed. The conclusion is that I had one of those significant life occurrences, and it was significant, but it hasn't really changed anything. That's kind of new for me, I'm used to these Life Moments being pretty tumultuous, not minor hiccups.
Only one thing still bothers me: why am I so reluctant to spit it out? Why am I still talking around it? So here we go.
I had a miscarriage last Tuesday. I didn't know, or suspect, I was pregnant, nor would I have kept it had I found out before starting on the Depo- Provera shots. It had gone four weeks at the absolute longest. It both shook me greatly and meant almost nothing to me, I suspect the largest part of the emotional response was due to my hormone levels imitating whirling dervishes. That, and my usual guilt-ridden wondering: if it's ok to not be devastated, then wondering if it's ok to be upset at all when it was really a lucky escape…then feeling guilty for thinking of it as a lucky escape, then realizing how silly thatis…
I suppose I'd always assumed that any unplanned pregnancy stuff would involve being pregnant and aware of it, not an " oh, by the way, you were pregnant for a couple weeks, but its' all over now…"
This happens all the time, every day hundreds of women miscarry, some know they're pregnant, some don't, and some never even realize it happens. It's only a tragedy for those women who desperately want a child. There are so many things that we all go through, and yet they seem utterly monumental at the time it happens to each of us. All the love/death/sex/birth stuff.
I was going somewhere with that I swear. It doesn't really matter though, because everyone knows what I'm talking about, and of the very few who read this I'm sure some are shocked, lots are concerned, and a couple are probably disgusted. Every one of them for their own reasons.
It's unusual for me to have something in my life that I worry about the potential reactions of my good friends, worry that they'll think less of me for it. I suppose it's the hint of irresponsibility, of reckless behavior. Especially on something I like to consider myself super-clued-in about. So maybe this has served as a reminder to me that you don't have to be stupid and irresponsible to get knocked up, you just have to be fertile. It's not having a game plan worked out that's stupid, not accepting that there is a possibility of it happening.
Wow, I've managed to boil this incident down to another trite little life-lesson. Go me!
It's not what happens to you , it's the way you deal with it that makes you who you are.
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Does it mean it's something serious if the Doctor's office won't let you have a 10 minute walk in appointment and immediately finds you a proper time-slot that day? Bearing in mind that this is the Doctor with whom I had to make an appointment three months in advance...
It isn't like me to be scared by medical type stuff, and I know it's most likely a standard sideffect from using the hormonal variety of birth control. It's the dreams I had this morning that are making it disturbing. I don't remember ever having a dream where I was pregnant before, and in these dreams someone or something was trying to make me un-pregnant. It might even have been me, I don't know. There was this awful feeling of my body not being my own any more, not knowing what to expect from one minute to the next, feeling possessed from within and attacked from without, and not knowing whose side I was on, or wanted to be on.
It could just be because I have "issues" about the ownership of my body, of course I know it's mine, but one of the many many reasons I'm not ready for kids yet is that I need longer to prove that to myself.
It isn't like me to be scared by medical type stuff, and I know it's most likely a standard sideffect from using the hormonal variety of birth control. It's the dreams I had this morning that are making it disturbing. I don't remember ever having a dream where I was pregnant before, and in these dreams someone or something was trying to make me un-pregnant. It might even have been me, I don't know. There was this awful feeling of my body not being my own any more, not knowing what to expect from one minute to the next, feeling possessed from within and attacked from without, and not knowing whose side I was on, or wanted to be on.
It could just be because I have "issues" about the ownership of my body, of course I know it's mine, but one of the many many reasons I'm not ready for kids yet is that I need longer to prove that to myself.
Friday, November 22, 2002
Tuesday, November 19, 2002
Clarification
For those who don't know me, my mannerisms, my goals in life and my personal motivations, (which is a lot of the people on this planet) I feel some clarification may be neccessary.
I moved into an apartment on Saturday. The only name on the lease is mine. The only person who decides when I leave said apartment is me. The only person who checks my mail is me. The only people watching my comings and goings are the little old ladies twitching their curtains. The only person who gets to comment on my housekeeping is Matt.
I did not move to make a statement to anyone, out of spite, in a fit of rage, or any other tantrum-related action you care to name. Nor did I move to indicate anything about the state of any of my relationships. My move was the sole purpose and aim of moving. It really is that ridiculously simple.
I moved because I want to live in my own place. I moved because I have come to value privacy a great deal more than I ever did, and the only way to achive the level of privacy I wish to have in my life is to live in my own place. I was not driven to it, nor was it a horrible undertaking forced upon me by evil adversaries. It was a positive life choice. What is more, the only person whose life it dramatically affects is...you guessed it...mine.
How does it affect me?
Simple. I have a home now.
For those who don't know me, my mannerisms, my goals in life and my personal motivations, (which is a lot of the people on this planet) I feel some clarification may be neccessary.
I moved into an apartment on Saturday. The only name on the lease is mine. The only person who decides when I leave said apartment is me. The only person who checks my mail is me. The only people watching my comings and goings are the little old ladies twitching their curtains. The only person who gets to comment on my housekeeping is Matt.
I did not move to make a statement to anyone, out of spite, in a fit of rage, or any other tantrum-related action you care to name. Nor did I move to indicate anything about the state of any of my relationships. My move was the sole purpose and aim of moving. It really is that ridiculously simple.
I moved because I want to live in my own place. I moved because I have come to value privacy a great deal more than I ever did, and the only way to achive the level of privacy I wish to have in my life is to live in my own place. I was not driven to it, nor was it a horrible undertaking forced upon me by evil adversaries. It was a positive life choice. What is more, the only person whose life it dramatically affects is...you guessed it...mine.
How does it affect me?
Simple. I have a home now.
Monday, November 18, 2002
Soooooo much to do! Here I was thinking moving in would be pretty much the end of it, but there's this stuff called groceries, completely from scratch. I don't even own any spices. Gack. It's all going to cost a lot of money intially, but when it comes down to it it's fun. It's an adventure. I get to figure out exactly how much parmesan I can go through in a month, and how many gallons of cream soda. I have barely been cooking for myself for months, and I have to remember how to do it again, it'll be pretty easy because I won't get distracted by a fridge full of other people's leftovers: the only things crawling around the back of my fridge will be things I put there. Or possibly Matt. Things Matt put there, not Matt crawling around my fridge.
I need a few naps to catch up on lost sleep from the past couple of months. Sometimes I feel it's to catch up on lost sleep from the past 13 months.
So far the only snag is that my mailbox has a label on it saying "R. Burford" I love it when the mis-spelling faeries give me a chance to try on a different surname.
I need a few naps to catch up on lost sleep from the past couple of months. Sometimes I feel it's to catch up on lost sleep from the past 13 months.
So far the only snag is that my mailbox has a label on it saying "R. Burford" I love it when the mis-spelling faeries give me a chance to try on a different surname.
Friday, November 15, 2002
The internet is a wonderful thing. Never mind my finding the apartment listing on wednesday morning, viewing the place that afternoon and being offered it the next morning (speedy credit checks also thanks to the internet), today I have notified my cell phone, credit card and insurance companies of my new address, and added renters insurance to my policy. I also filled out the Post Office change of address form online, then printed the DMV form and filled it out ready to mail tonight. The only one left is my bank.
I was pleasantly surprised by how handily compartmentalized my belongings are too. Though it helps that I don't have a whole hell of a lot of kitchen equipment, and I certianly don't have any foodstuffs to transport. Apart from some tubes of decorative frosting and an unopened bottle of balsamic vinegar. Charmingly picante combination you know...frosting and vinegar...they're serving it at allthe best restaurants in London these days...
I was pleasantly surprised by how handily compartmentalized my belongings are too. Though it helps that I don't have a whole hell of a lot of kitchen equipment, and I certianly don't have any foodstuffs to transport. Apart from some tubes of decorative frosting and an unopened bottle of balsamic vinegar. Charmingly picante combination you know...frosting and vinegar...they're serving it at allthe best restaurants in London these days...
Thursday, November 14, 2002
Drumroll...
I am now oficially a cave troll. Though hopefully I won't find myself dragged around a giant underground city by a bunch of awks for the sole purpose of getting beaten up by four hobbits, two humans, a dwarf, an elf and a Gandalf in a pear tree.
Even if the light hadn't been an issue I think I needed to see the place again to reassure myself that it really is a liveable space. Honestly, the only real gripe I have is that it's doors on the shower, not a curtain rail, so my groovy shower curtain will have to go into cold storage. Or be loaned to Stonedragon, for his new abode. Pretty damn small complaint when you really think about it isn't it?
~Ash, the semisubterrenean faerie
I am now oficially a cave troll. Though hopefully I won't find myself dragged around a giant underground city by a bunch of awks for the sole purpose of getting beaten up by four hobbits, two humans, a dwarf, an elf and a Gandalf in a pear tree.
Even if the light hadn't been an issue I think I needed to see the place again to reassure myself that it really is a liveable space. Honestly, the only real gripe I have is that it's doors on the shower, not a curtain rail, so my groovy shower curtain will have to go into cold storage. Or be loaned to Stonedragon, for his new abode. Pretty damn small complaint when you really think about it isn't it?
~Ash, the semisubterrenean faerie
I have now been accepted at / offered three different apartments. All right, so the first one was to move in November 1st, and wasn't fantastic enough to justify the extra expenditure of moving in that early. The second was teeny tiny, in a great building, but still teeny. Plus that whole closet being completely open to the bathroom thing, no thanks to moldy sweaters. The third, the one I'm going to re-view today, has little personality, the kitchen isn't a separate room, and it could very well turn out to be a cave. I saw it after dark before so I can't be sure. Besides the troll issue, do I really want to live somewhere that at most said "meh" to me, rather than somewhere that leaps up and down and calls "you could be at home here, this is a YOU place!" the moment I walk in the door?
I have seen three places where I would truly love to live, all interesting and attractive to me for very different reasons. All open way too early, or already taken. Or both. These three places I walked in the door and thought "Yes! I want to live here! This is a meplace"
Of course I'm not going to stay in this new place forever, but even if you manage to coordinate the leases, moving does cost money. There's no escaping it. So I want to minimize moves, therefore I want to live in a place that I feel I'll stay in, not a place that maybe I'll kinda sorta like being there.
Now we come to the real undercurrent to all this: maybe I don't want to find my own place. I've become very used to spending every evening and night with Matt. Not just used to, very much enjoying. We drifted into it because I wanted to be there more than anywhere else I had to go, then it became the routine. I want to change part of the routine, but I don't want to change the part that involves waking up next to him, and moving into my own place will mean that for part of the working week at least I will be staying at my place. In fact I'll make sure I do, otherwise I'm back to spending $10+ a day to store my belongings.
This is why every time I get close to signing for a place I can only think of the negatives. Though when I really think about it that teeny studio was too teeny (not to mention the closet thing) and this one may very well be a cave. I'll find out in about 30 minutes when I go to look at it in the middle of a sunny day.
If I do turn my nose up at this place there's a couple more prospects, and there's always next week's Reader, and neighborhood walking this weekend. As long as my subconscious remembers it's place and stops pointing out how much nicer it would be if the window were over there instead of where it really is…
I have seen three places where I would truly love to live, all interesting and attractive to me for very different reasons. All open way too early, or already taken. Or both. These three places I walked in the door and thought "Yes! I want to live here! This is a meplace"
Of course I'm not going to stay in this new place forever, but even if you manage to coordinate the leases, moving does cost money. There's no escaping it. So I want to minimize moves, therefore I want to live in a place that I feel I'll stay in, not a place that maybe I'll kinda sorta like being there.
Now we come to the real undercurrent to all this: maybe I don't want to find my own place. I've become very used to spending every evening and night with Matt. Not just used to, very much enjoying. We drifted into it because I wanted to be there more than anywhere else I had to go, then it became the routine. I want to change part of the routine, but I don't want to change the part that involves waking up next to him, and moving into my own place will mean that for part of the working week at least I will be staying at my place. In fact I'll make sure I do, otherwise I'm back to spending $10+ a day to store my belongings.
This is why every time I get close to signing for a place I can only think of the negatives. Though when I really think about it that teeny studio was too teeny (not to mention the closet thing) and this one may very well be a cave. I'll find out in about 30 minutes when I go to look at it in the middle of a sunny day.
If I do turn my nose up at this place there's a couple more prospects, and there's always next week's Reader, and neighborhood walking this weekend. As long as my subconscious remembers it's place and stops pointing out how much nicer it would be if the window were over there instead of where it really is…
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Friday, November 08, 2002
Thursday, November 07, 2002
I gave up, and replaced the template entirely. I think I've remembered all the people that I had linked on my blog roll, if I think of anyone else I'll add them on again. When I get around to owning a computer other than my jumped-up word processor of a 486 Compaq laptop I'll take the time to figure out html beyond my current cut-and-paste abilities and think up something more originally me.
Currently the server seems to be denying the existance of my blog, but it'll allow access to the archived pages. Go figure.
It accepted the new post on "Past. Present. Future: perfect?" though.
Currently the server seems to be denying the existance of my blog, but it'll allow access to the archived pages. Go figure.
It accepted the new post on "Past. Present. Future: perfect?" though.
Monday, November 04, 2002
You may notice the template is screwing up a little. I managed to fix it so that the links down the left are the colour they're supposed to be, instead of occasionally teal or magenta as they were this morning. I've gone in an "fixed" the date header and timestamp several times, but it won't save my changes. So I'm giving up for now.
~Ash the non-HTML-literate faerie
~Ash the non-HTML-literate faerie
Friday, November 01, 2002
No candles after all, we would have slow-roasted ourselves if we lit them all again, it was a mild night and (of course) you can't run the fan when there's candles right next to it. We sat and talked about the future, and a little about the past. I got to ask what one of his songs was about, one that had intrigued me for a while. There's a more solid plan forming for our planned trip to Scotland. Thankfully we agreed not to try to see absolutely everythingat one go. A taster of London, followed by Stonehenge, the train ride north with a stop at York and/or Hadrian's wall, then 6 or so days in Edinburgh exploring local castles and historical sites still covers a hell of a lot if you ask me!
My parents might want to meet us in London and come along for the ride, that would be fun. Matt will get a real picture of my formative years, taking trips with my parents, the way they both approached the opportunities to see new places, is one of the things I feel shaped my world view the most. I get the feeling he'll absolutely love it. He's already got the getting things done but still managing to smell the roses on the way mentality.
My parents might want to meet us in London and come along for the ride, that would be fun. Matt will get a real picture of my formative years, taking trips with my parents, the way they both approached the opportunities to see new places, is one of the things I feel shaped my world view the most. I get the feeling he'll absolutely love it. He's already got the getting things done but still managing to smell the roses on the way mentality.
Thursday, October 31, 2002
Countdown to Edinburgh: 6 weeks
Whoooeeee!
Samhain in an hour or so. Not that I'll be doing anything particularly special. A bottle of wine, too many candles and probably a spot of divination alongside Matt. Come to think of it that isspecial.
I really am damn lucky. Looking over the last year and a bit, I've made leaps and bounds, internally and externally. No, I don't just mean the fitness and weight loss. The next big step is approaching and I'm getting really excited about it. Nervous too, but mostly excited, because I know I'll find a nice place, and I know I'll enjoy the difference of having my own apartment. I hope I find somewhere that I can consider getting a cat too, but that can always wait.
Whoooeeee!
Samhain in an hour or so. Not that I'll be doing anything particularly special. A bottle of wine, too many candles and probably a spot of divination alongside Matt. Come to think of it that isspecial.
I really am damn lucky. Looking over the last year and a bit, I've made leaps and bounds, internally and externally. No, I don't just mean the fitness and weight loss. The next big step is approaching and I'm getting really excited about it. Nervous too, but mostly excited, because I know I'll find a nice place, and I know I'll enjoy the difference of having my own apartment. I hope I find somewhere that I can consider getting a cat too, but that can always wait.
Friday, October 25, 2002
Countdown to Edinburgh: 7 weeks
Merp! Seven weeks till I go home for Christmas, I have no idea why but I'm suddenly nervous, the last time I was home was a long time ago, not just chronologically, a lot has happened since then. I suppose I'm still not used to going back there and finding it just the same, and yet completely different, and I can never tell how much is the place and the people and how much is change in my perspective.
On the other hand, maybe it's only merp-worthy because of all that I have to get done before I board that plane.
Merp! Seven weeks till I go home for Christmas, I have no idea why but I'm suddenly nervous, the last time I was home was a long time ago, not just chronologically, a lot has happened since then. I suppose I'm still not used to going back there and finding it just the same, and yet completely different, and I can never tell how much is the place and the people and how much is change in my perspective.
On the other hand, maybe it's only merp-worthy because of all that I have to get done before I board that plane.
Friday, October 18, 2002
There's a whole lot of hurry up and wait going on
But that's ok 'cause I've got good people to help me maintain my sanity.
Yet again I have various deep and profound things skittering about in my brain, but not one of them will stand still long enough for me to get a really good look at it and drag it out through my fingertips. Right now the mental pictures I have showing on the viewscreen are of (in no particular order): my man all sleepy and snuggly wrapped in a chenille blanket this morning; an auburn haired baby I've never met stagger-crawling around a house I've never seen with a banana in her sticky little hand, leaving a trail of nana-goo wherever she goes...myself sitting in an apartment I don't live in yet, playing guitar like I know what I'm doing while a young cat tries to eat my toes.
Somewhere in the very bottom corner of that viewscreen there's a girl on a tattered red loveseat, with too-long blondish hair and a forgotten pen and paper in her hand, sitting in the dark trying to figure out where she went wrong. I want to speak to her, to tell her it's ok, not to worry because in a few years it'll have worked itself out, not to think all is lost when there's so much yet to come...but she can't hear me, she doesn't know me yet, she can only find out by living through it until she sits where I sit now and looks back at herself as I'm doing. I can't help her. I can only help me.
But that's ok 'cause I've got good people to help me maintain my sanity.
Yet again I have various deep and profound things skittering about in my brain, but not one of them will stand still long enough for me to get a really good look at it and drag it out through my fingertips. Right now the mental pictures I have showing on the viewscreen are of (in no particular order): my man all sleepy and snuggly wrapped in a chenille blanket this morning; an auburn haired baby I've never met stagger-crawling around a house I've never seen with a banana in her sticky little hand, leaving a trail of nana-goo wherever she goes...myself sitting in an apartment I don't live in yet, playing guitar like I know what I'm doing while a young cat tries to eat my toes.
Somewhere in the very bottom corner of that viewscreen there's a girl on a tattered red loveseat, with too-long blondish hair and a forgotten pen and paper in her hand, sitting in the dark trying to figure out where she went wrong. I want to speak to her, to tell her it's ok, not to worry because in a few years it'll have worked itself out, not to think all is lost when there's so much yet to come...but she can't hear me, she doesn't know me yet, she can only find out by living through it until she sits where I sit now and looks back at herself as I'm doing. I can't help her. I can only help me.
Tuesday, October 08, 2002
Most of you already know that Saturday, the 5th of October, was Matt's and my 6th luniversary.
Good heavens, half a year. The thing that struck both of us is "where the hell did the year GO??" There are many parallels between our lives, we both had a large changover and restart on life in early fall of 2001, for him it was leaving the Navy, starting work in a civillian capacity, suddenly moving into his very own place for the first time...for me...well, you already know the story. So for both of us this 6 month benchmark is also surrounded by anniversaries of significant events of our own. There is a huge feeling of achivement for both of us looking back on the past year, both together and seperately. Well, when we manage not to be caught up in stressing about the future.
I'm having more frequent flashbacks and panics than I can ever remember having, they never did cause me to suddenly go foetal and hide under my bed, I had much too effectively internalized it all right from the start. Now they've become a relatively constant backdrop to my daily life. Driving to work, walking 'round a store, sitting reading somewhere, whatever I'm doing, it's there: that feeling of fear, not any specific fear, just FEAR...but I'm still standing, and it's largely due to him, I wouldn't be ready for this yet without him. I'd have gotten there eventually, but it would have taken a lot longer. He sees my strengths and it makes it so much easier to be stronger. Of course he sees my weaknesses too, if he only saw one part it wouldn't have lasted even 2 months, but he sees them in the context of how I overcome and work around them. To him, I am a fighter, not a victim, and it isn't everything, but it helps enormously.
I said a while back that I didn't want to be with another protective man. I was wrong, I didn't/don't want to be with another man who expresses protectiveness as posessiveness. Or confuses the two in any way.
Schiesse, work calls.
Good heavens, half a year. The thing that struck both of us is "where the hell did the year GO??" There are many parallels between our lives, we both had a large changover and restart on life in early fall of 2001, for him it was leaving the Navy, starting work in a civillian capacity, suddenly moving into his very own place for the first time...for me...well, you already know the story. So for both of us this 6 month benchmark is also surrounded by anniversaries of significant events of our own. There is a huge feeling of achivement for both of us looking back on the past year, both together and seperately. Well, when we manage not to be caught up in stressing about the future.
I'm having more frequent flashbacks and panics than I can ever remember having, they never did cause me to suddenly go foetal and hide under my bed, I had much too effectively internalized it all right from the start. Now they've become a relatively constant backdrop to my daily life. Driving to work, walking 'round a store, sitting reading somewhere, whatever I'm doing, it's there: that feeling of fear, not any specific fear, just FEAR...but I'm still standing, and it's largely due to him, I wouldn't be ready for this yet without him. I'd have gotten there eventually, but it would have taken a lot longer. He sees my strengths and it makes it so much easier to be stronger. Of course he sees my weaknesses too, if he only saw one part it wouldn't have lasted even 2 months, but he sees them in the context of how I overcome and work around them. To him, I am a fighter, not a victim, and it isn't everything, but it helps enormously.
I said a while back that I didn't want to be with another protective man. I was wrong, I didn't/don't want to be with another man who expresses protectiveness as posessiveness. Or confuses the two in any way.
Schiesse, work calls.
Friday, October 04, 2002
Pardon my silence of late…
I feel if I try to write anything for now it's going to turn in to a bland "what I've been up to the past week" opus. So it's not really worth it.
My creative writing brain cells have been commandeered by other sections, so there's very little going into my hardcopy journal either.
They're the important sections though: coping mechanisms, compartmentalization, stuff like that. I've got a bunch of little algorithms running constantly, and a secondary bunch of algorithms devoted to keeping the first set in check, so that they keep running, but don't impinge on daily life.
Yes, this is related to the introspection. With pie charts. This isn't a pie chart, but it's a major breakthrough: ever heard of delayed onset chronic posttraumatic stress disorder? Me either. But it fits. It covers and eclipses all the stuff about generalized anxiety disorder and low level depression. It also means that the one thing I've tried to cut out of my life, the part I didn't want to give any space to because it is so unacceptable to me…that is the part that I have to take out and give voice to. It is the part I have to face down and accept so that it shuts the fuck up and leaves me alone.
I tried very hard not to assign my largest problems to that one little incident, one week out of twenty years shouldn't be allowed to have that kind of effect. But apparently it did. I was traumatized. I didn't get to choose, it just happened to me, was done to me, and I still don't get to choose, I have to deal with it.
Finally recognizing that, however much I don't want to, has allowed me to see that it isn't that I'm fundamentally flawed, no matter how much trouble I had and caused as a kid, it isn't why I nearly crashed out of college. My underlying character kept me from failure, it didn't push me towards it. I had no social support, none whatsoever, and I still stayed alive, I fought with myself but I never drew blood. Furthermore, even though there are some wierdnesses gifted to me by my parents and how they taught me, they are nothing, abso-fucking-lutely nothing, compared to the emotional lesson taught me by those people.
It's not my fault. It's not my parents' fault. There was nothing we could have done in the face of such a betrayal.
Thus spake the algorithms, they're still working away in there. I'm almost afraid of what it's going to be like in my head when they're done running. What on earth will I do with the extra processing capabilities?
Maybe I'll write a novel.
Maybe two.
Even I don't how much of my self has been taken up with this task for the past six years.
I feel if I try to write anything for now it's going to turn in to a bland "what I've been up to the past week" opus. So it's not really worth it.
My creative writing brain cells have been commandeered by other sections, so there's very little going into my hardcopy journal either.
They're the important sections though: coping mechanisms, compartmentalization, stuff like that. I've got a bunch of little algorithms running constantly, and a secondary bunch of algorithms devoted to keeping the first set in check, so that they keep running, but don't impinge on daily life.
Yes, this is related to the introspection. With pie charts. This isn't a pie chart, but it's a major breakthrough: ever heard of delayed onset chronic posttraumatic stress disorder? Me either. But it fits. It covers and eclipses all the stuff about generalized anxiety disorder and low level depression. It also means that the one thing I've tried to cut out of my life, the part I didn't want to give any space to because it is so unacceptable to me…that is the part that I have to take out and give voice to. It is the part I have to face down and accept so that it shuts the fuck up and leaves me alone.
I tried very hard not to assign my largest problems to that one little incident, one week out of twenty years shouldn't be allowed to have that kind of effect. But apparently it did. I was traumatized. I didn't get to choose, it just happened to me, was done to me, and I still don't get to choose, I have to deal with it.
Finally recognizing that, however much I don't want to, has allowed me to see that it isn't that I'm fundamentally flawed, no matter how much trouble I had and caused as a kid, it isn't why I nearly crashed out of college. My underlying character kept me from failure, it didn't push me towards it. I had no social support, none whatsoever, and I still stayed alive, I fought with myself but I never drew blood. Furthermore, even though there are some wierdnesses gifted to me by my parents and how they taught me, they are nothing, abso-fucking-lutely nothing, compared to the emotional lesson taught me by those people.
It's not my fault. It's not my parents' fault. There was nothing we could have done in the face of such a betrayal.
Thus spake the algorithms, they're still working away in there. I'm almost afraid of what it's going to be like in my head when they're done running. What on earth will I do with the extra processing capabilities?
Maybe I'll write a novel.
Maybe two.
Even I don't how much of my self has been taken up with this task for the past six years.
Monday, September 30, 2002
Thursday, September 26, 2002
Level Up!
Testing for Purple Belt Level 1 was sprung on me last night. Master Frazer said that the rest of the class wasn't ready for their tests yet (they have lots more to learn for each level because they are all ahead of me) but that I was more than ready. So I got tested last night, basically they made sure the class covered everything I eneded to know and watched how I dealt with it. Then the regular testing is being delayed to next month, when I will test AGAIN. Merp. I have to master the spinning kicks before then.
I can't wait till I get to do jumpingspinning kicks.
Violent? Moi?
Have I mentioned my nickname when I was three was "miss piggy"? Haaaiiiiiiii-YAH!
*watches skinny frog flying across the room*
Testing for Purple Belt Level 1 was sprung on me last night. Master Frazer said that the rest of the class wasn't ready for their tests yet (they have lots more to learn for each level because they are all ahead of me) but that I was more than ready. So I got tested last night, basically they made sure the class covered everything I eneded to know and watched how I dealt with it. Then the regular testing is being delayed to next month, when I will test AGAIN. Merp. I have to master the spinning kicks before then.
I can't wait till I get to do jumpingspinning kicks.
Violent? Moi?
Have I mentioned my nickname when I was three was "miss piggy"? Haaaiiiiiiii-YAH!
*watches skinny frog flying across the room*
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
Friday, September 20, 2002
Thursday, September 19, 2002
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
Monday, September 16, 2002
Friday, September 13, 2002
Dammit, he's not back yet, I hope I make it out by 4.30, I really want to make the karate practice. I knew I should have taken my stuff for the weekend when I left the apartment this morning, but I didn't want my guitar sitting in the car getting cooked all day, or getting in the way in the lab either.
Oh well, either way, I have decided to add "wine" to the previous list of stuff I want. Unless Matt feels like breaking out the port. Which I doubt he will.
Oh well, either way, I have decided to add "wine" to the previous list of stuff I want. Unless Matt feels like breaking out the port. Which I doubt he will.
Time went ridiculously fast up until about 2pm today, I thought I'd be hard pressed to get everything done in time to get to the extra karate practice.
Then.
It.
Stopped.
Roll on 4.30pm.
Please?
Heh, a crazy person just walked past the lab singing really loudly.
That killed all of 30 seconds.
I want: karate, shower, food, nap, snuggles with my boy, nap, chocolate chip cookie-dough ice cream...a nap would be nice too.
Then.
It.
Stopped.
Roll on 4.30pm.
Please?
Heh, a crazy person just walked past the lab singing really loudly.
That killed all of 30 seconds.
I want: karate, shower, food, nap, snuggles with my boy, nap, chocolate chip cookie-dough ice cream...a nap would be nice too.
And Now For Something Completely Frivolous
Yesterday after work Bob and I ate raw dead animals and smashed stuff.
UG! SMASHING STUFF GOOD!!
In other words: we went for sushi and then I broke my first board. Using hammerfist. I think Bob was more surprised than I was that I did it first try, perhaps that's because I broke it before he'd finished the pep talk.
I'd told my parents I'd send them my first board, but I think I'd rather keep it and just show it to them. Maybe I can break another and send them that one instead. They can have it bronzed and keep it with my baby teeth.
Yesterday after work Bob and I ate raw dead animals and smashed stuff.
UG! SMASHING STUFF GOOD!!
In other words: we went for sushi and then I broke my first board. Using hammerfist. I think Bob was more surprised than I was that I did it first try, perhaps that's because I broke it before he'd finished the pep talk.
I'd told my parents I'd send them my first board, but I think I'd rather keep it and just show it to them. Maybe I can break another and send them that one instead. They can have it bronzed and keep it with my baby teeth.
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Who Cares About Politics When Their Loved Ones Lie Dead?
If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go
Surrender
Dislocate
If I could throw this
Lifeless lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame
If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light
And to the day
To let it go
And so to fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no
If you should ask then maybe they'd
Tell you what I would say
True colors fly in blue and black
Bruised silken sky and burning flag
Colors crash, collide in blood shot eyes
If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would
Let it go...
This desperation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation
Let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so to fade away
I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no ~U2
They played "bad" by U2 on the radio this morning, the extended version, and I nearly cried, if it had been the version of "sunday bloody sunday" from Rattle & Hum I would have cried. It's strange, even though it didn't even hit me particularly hard at the time. I find myself mourning every horror, not just this one enormous one. It's difficult not to think of all the terrorist acts that have gone on in my lifetime alone. I was much closer to the Lockerbie Disaster, or the shooting in Dunblane Elementary, the various IRA bombs of the past 20 years. The lone bomber who planted nail bombs in crowded areas three weeks in a row my first year in London.
I think what touches me the most is the incredible solidarity the US is showing in the face of such attacks. Not the gung-ho let's kill the arabs stuff, but the complete outrage and refusal to accept such acts of violence. Zero Tolerance. We need more of that back home. If there was the same outrage and horror at every IRA attack or retaliation against the IRA...maybe there wouldn't be a revolution any more.
People say a lot of things about the US and it's patriotism, many of them none to flattering, but what they miss is that this patriotism is about the people, the citizens, not the government, not about wealth, or politics, but about protecting the american people. That's a type of patriotism we need more of in the world. The kind that makes us all a family, no matter who our parents are. The United Kingdom could stand to learn a thing or two about how to handle terrorist acts if they only looked across the Atlantic. Of course, its' harder to sustain Zero Tolerance when the perpetrators are your neighbors and fellow countrymen. but think of what a villain Timothy McVeigh became, while Gerry Adams still has a voice.
So maybe it's not that appropriate to talk about Northern Ireland on a day that should belong to the United States, but it's the filter through which I see terrorist acts, it's the first thing I knew in that context, and after so many years it isn't getting any better. The people of my first country need to look around them and realise that if every single one of them stood up and refused to accept the death of innocents...maybe the innocents wouldn't get hurt so often.
"Fuck the Revolution. People are dying. That's not a revolution, that's murder."
If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go
Surrender
Dislocate
If I could throw this
Lifeless lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame
If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light
And to the day
To let it go
And so to fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no
If you should ask then maybe they'd
Tell you what I would say
True colors fly in blue and black
Bruised silken sky and burning flag
Colors crash, collide in blood shot eyes
If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would
Let it go...
This desperation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation
Let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so to fade away
I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no ~U2
They played "bad" by U2 on the radio this morning, the extended version, and I nearly cried, if it had been the version of "sunday bloody sunday" from Rattle & Hum I would have cried. It's strange, even though it didn't even hit me particularly hard at the time. I find myself mourning every horror, not just this one enormous one. It's difficult not to think of all the terrorist acts that have gone on in my lifetime alone. I was much closer to the Lockerbie Disaster, or the shooting in Dunblane Elementary, the various IRA bombs of the past 20 years. The lone bomber who planted nail bombs in crowded areas three weeks in a row my first year in London.
I think what touches me the most is the incredible solidarity the US is showing in the face of such attacks. Not the gung-ho let's kill the arabs stuff, but the complete outrage and refusal to accept such acts of violence. Zero Tolerance. We need more of that back home. If there was the same outrage and horror at every IRA attack or retaliation against the IRA...maybe there wouldn't be a revolution any more.
People say a lot of things about the US and it's patriotism, many of them none to flattering, but what they miss is that this patriotism is about the people, the citizens, not the government, not about wealth, or politics, but about protecting the american people. That's a type of patriotism we need more of in the world. The kind that makes us all a family, no matter who our parents are. The United Kingdom could stand to learn a thing or two about how to handle terrorist acts if they only looked across the Atlantic. Of course, its' harder to sustain Zero Tolerance when the perpetrators are your neighbors and fellow countrymen. but think of what a villain Timothy McVeigh became, while Gerry Adams still has a voice.
So maybe it's not that appropriate to talk about Northern Ireland on a day that should belong to the United States, but it's the filter through which I see terrorist acts, it's the first thing I knew in that context, and after so many years it isn't getting any better. The people of my first country need to look around them and realise that if every single one of them stood up and refused to accept the death of innocents...maybe the innocents wouldn't get hurt so often.
"Fuck the Revolution. People are dying. That's not a revolution, that's murder."
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
Monday, September 09, 2002
More on My Hair
(because it's just soooooo fascinating)
My growing-the-hair-long-again learning curve has continued with the revalation that yes, I do indeed need to condition, otherwise Matt'll get his hand stuck any time he tries to lovingly run his fingers through my hair. Hey, at least this is better than last time my hair got to shoulder length, THAT time I'd forgotten what it was like to own a hairbrush.
On a more intellectual note, I have a game-plan to improve my sanity through the next few months: I'm going to be a recluse for at least an hour a day, as often as I can manage it. I need some serious quality time staring at a wall.
Or maybe I can sit and watch my leghair grow...
(because it's just soooooo fascinating)
My growing-the-hair-long-again learning curve has continued with the revalation that yes, I do indeed need to condition, otherwise Matt'll get his hand stuck any time he tries to lovingly run his fingers through my hair. Hey, at least this is better than last time my hair got to shoulder length, THAT time I'd forgotten what it was like to own a hairbrush.
On a more intellectual note, I have a game-plan to improve my sanity through the next few months: I'm going to be a recluse for at least an hour a day, as often as I can manage it. I need some serious quality time staring at a wall.
Or maybe I can sit and watch my leghair grow...
Friday, September 06, 2002
I've realised the thing I like least about my body. It's not the shape, I can change that, not neccesarily easily, but it's getting closer and closer to a shape I'm actively happy with. What I dislike is the maintenencestuff. Guys have: washing, and shaving their face if they want to. Women have: Legshaving, eyebrow tweezing, bikini area de-fuzzing, making sure they don't have the random chin hairs that make them resemble fairy-tale witches much more than fairy-tale princesses.
Urgh, it's not even maintenence is it? It's just HAIR REMOVAL! I'm not spectacularly furry as people go, it just grows back too damn fast.
I don't carry out these grooming rituals because I fear I will be rejected if I have fuzz near my navel, I do it because I prefer the feel of having shaven legs, and I think my tummy looks better without fuzz.
Perhaps I should look into that laser hair removal thingy. My sister tried electrolysis and said it hurt like hell, she now has a teeny bald patch on one of her calves, the only place they managed to treat before she ran (maybe limped) away screaming.
Good Gods, I just posted about body hair. I must be bored. Or too sleepy to think of anything more interesting to say.
Urgh, it's not even maintenence is it? It's just HAIR REMOVAL! I'm not spectacularly furry as people go, it just grows back too damn fast.
I don't carry out these grooming rituals because I fear I will be rejected if I have fuzz near my navel, I do it because I prefer the feel of having shaven legs, and I think my tummy looks better without fuzz.
Perhaps I should look into that laser hair removal thingy. My sister tried electrolysis and said it hurt like hell, she now has a teeny bald patch on one of her calves, the only place they managed to treat before she ran (maybe limped) away screaming.
Good Gods, I just posted about body hair. I must be bored. Or too sleepy to think of anything more interesting to say.
Tuesday, September 03, 2002
We had our first almost-argument yesterday, only it wasn't an argument, as there was no disagreement involved, it was an uncomfortableness. We're still finding our individual and collective feet after Lump's departure and got caught in one of those pointless "what's he/she thinking, he/she seems upset, but I'm afraid to ask..." cycles. It only lasted an hour or so, and was very much compounded by my having been harrassed that afternoon.
Luckily we broke through the self inflicted barrier of silence early enough in the day to crash together on the reclaimed futon and watch two movies, and get some semi-frivolous talking in before bedtime. The kind of semi-frivoulous that's actually all serious. That whole "yeah, this is why we're together" thing.
I suppose what it comes down to (if you really want me to boil it down to the essential oil of us-ness) is the words we used to cement that "we" were ok.
Partners?
Yes...partners.
Luckily we broke through the self inflicted barrier of silence early enough in the day to crash together on the reclaimed futon and watch two movies, and get some semi-frivolous talking in before bedtime. The kind of semi-frivoulous that's actually all serious. That whole "yeah, this is why we're together" thing.
I suppose what it comes down to (if you really want me to boil it down to the essential oil of us-ness) is the words we used to cement that "we" were ok.
Partners?
Yes...partners.
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